(CLP) Programs

Appleton Greene corporate training programs are all process-driven. They are used as vehicles to implement tangible business processes within clients’ organizations, together with training, support and facilitation during the use of these processes. Corporate training programs are therefore implemented over a sustainable period of time, that is to say, between 1 year (incorporating 12 monthly workshops), and 4 years (incorporating 48 monthly workshops). Your program information guide will specify how long each program takes to complete. Each monthly workshop takes 6 hours to implement and can be undertaken either on the client’s premises, an Appleton Greene serviced office, or online via the internet. This enables clients to implement each part of their business process, before moving onto the next stage of the program and enables employees to plan their study time around their current work commitments. The result is far greater program benefit, over a more sustainable period of time and a significantly improved return on investment.

Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. All (CLP) programs are implemented over a sustainable period of time, usually between 1-4 years, incorporating 12-48 monthly workshops and professional support is consistently provided during this time by qualified learning providers and where appropriate, by Accredited Consultants.

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Executive summary

Unlocking Motivation

Welcome to the Program called Unlocking Motivation: The New Practice of Predicting and Activating Customer Growth.

Use of the word “unlocking” reflects that this program gives you the keys to opening up large, untapped customer growth opportunities that exist inside every company. While managers direct complex customer experiences, customer satisfaction, digital marketing, AI and other customer-facing components, this Program will emphasize the power of motivation—what drives people’s behaviors—in forecasting and activating growth.

While companies struggle to grow, investment is channeled to measurements and practices that “potentially” increase customer value 18% (on average across industries). What if you had a strategy for growing customer value 52%? And what if this approach wasn’t only more effective but even more scalable?

Why companies are especially interested in this topic today is because investments in customer optimization are increasing. Without a significant impact on results, the ROI on those investments tend to disappoint. A core principle of competitive dynamics is that if programs don’t yield results, then they’re only raising the cost to compete. Indeed, stock markets view a company’s ability to drive sustainable organic growth as one of the strongest indicators of its ability to plan and execute.

Organic growth is particularly challenging in mature industries where new customer acquisition has plateaued. The 2024 Fortune Global 500 Report shows the world’s largest companies posted a mere .1% year-over-year revenue increase. The average Fortune 500 company grew by 5%, but this figure is skewed by financial institutions that saw 40%+ revenue growth due to higher interest rates and unusual growth in investment banking. So, the average misses that 41% of Fortune 500 companies experienced negative growth, while 47% grew by less than 2%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 grew 4% in 2023, falling below its 5- and 10-year averages.

With customer saturation intensifying, the battle for a greater share of customer spending has never been fiercer. Consider these examples: A fast food chain that can steal one additional visit per month per medium- and heavy-user could generate nearly $2 billion in growth. A bank that drives its existing customers to concentrate one more financial product with them could capture billions (depending on bank size) in new revenues. Yet, these types of gains remain elusive.

To capture this growth, companies invest in customer loyalty programs, enhanced customer experience, AI-driven personalization (and other technologies) and product and service innovations. Yet, despite these efforts, many C-level and senior marketing executives—across brokerage, health insurance, banking, retail, fast food, CPG and other mature industries—report disappointing ROI.

The problem? Significant, untapped customer growth opportunities remain unseen within most organizations.

Business professionals often admire the rare brands that seem to create exceptional customer loyalty and advocacy. Thousands of executives have asked themselves, “Why can’t we be more like Apple?” Well, Apple with its inspired and extraordinary founders and ensuing culture cannot be easily replicated. Nor can its market cap. But there are emerging practices and disciplines for the rest of us. And they work!

To capitalize on them, companies need a new lens to identify, measure and activate these opportunities. Imagine putting on 3D glasses—and what once appeared flat and indistinct suddenly becomes dynamic and full of potential. With new predictive analytics and fresh strategic insights, companies can pinpoint high-value opportunities previously overlooked. This approach cuts through the fog of traditional practices and low expectations, breaks open the box created by legacy practices, and offers a clear, logical path to breakthrough customer growth.

You will learn to see, examine and activate your customer asset through a new lens that reveals customer growth opportunities presently hidden below the surface.

The Constraints and Pitfalls of Existing Practices
Let’s begin by examining commonly accepted customer management practices and their inherent limitations. As the saying goes, “We manage what we measure,” so measurement is a good starting point.

Most companies track Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), while some prefer Net Promoter Score (NPS®), which generally correlates with satisfaction. However, relying on CSAT to assess customer experience overlooks massive growth opportunities. But, if you don’t measure it, you don’t see it.

One major flaw of CSAT is that it frames the problem around dissatisfaction—leading managers to ask, “What are we doing wrong?” and “Why is this so hard to fix?” A health insurance client admitted that, despite investing millions over the years to reduce dissatisfaction, the problem hadn’t improved.

Customer loyalty efforts tend to focus on fixing dissatisfaction and reducing attrition, rather than driving growth. Companies identify and address negative touchpoints, respond to complaints, and aim to move customers from dissatisfaction to satisfaction. But even when this works, what does it actually achieve? Progress is often slow, retention might increase marginally, but customer growth remains stagnant. Meanwhile, companies deploy traditional growth tactics: Messaging customers about new products; adding incentives to loyalty programs and running promotions to stimulate sales.

To gain advantage, executives frequently rely on innovation, which they tell us that the impact is short-lived. This commonly forces companies to rely even more on promotion. At the same time, market competition is more fragmented than ever, with customers spreading their dollars across multiple brands. As a result, pathways to above-average growth are increasingly elusive.

To break free from these constraints, companies need a fundamentally different approach—one that doesn’t just manage dissatisfaction but unlocks untapped customer growth potential.

The Dead End of Dissatisfaction
What if we discovered that moving dissatisfied customers to satisfaction is one of the poorest investments a company can make? At the very least, it would force us to reconsider our options.
Decades ago, satisfaction was a breakthrough. In the 1960s and 70s, quality was a global issue, and improving it led to gains in market share and profitability. But today, as quality has become an expected standard, satisfaction is merely a proxy for quality control.

This doesn’t mean satisfaction is irrelevant. If aspects of the customer experience erode trust and quality, then growth isn’t even an option. However, decades of measurement across hundreds of brands show that most companies don’t have a satisfaction problem. Minor improvements—such as reducing wait times or training service teams to be more attentive—are actionable and necessary, but offer diminishing returns. As a former service operations clients put it:

“You can only smile at a customer so many times.”

The Noise of Dissatisfaction
Another challenge is that the most dissatisfied customers are often the loudest. In a banking study, we observed that highly dissatisfied customers would complain relentlessly:
“This is the worst, most greedy company—it should be taken over by the government!”
These disgruntled voices don’t just think negatively—they spread negativity on social media, in conversations, and online reviews. Even when brands invest in satisfaction improvements, the most vocal critics remain difficult to please. Meanwhile, customers who love your brand can be drowned out by a cynical minority.

Raising the Bar
Let’s shift gears. What about raising the bar?

About 15 years ago a customer experience (CX) professional at a national retail chain commented, “This was the first quarter in our history that satisfaction scores went up but retention went down.” For that chain, CSAT was no longer predictive of retention (let alone growth).

A painful assumption is that customer value is assumed to be the natural outcome of delivering a quality customer experience. What’s missing? Is there something above satisfaction that triggers extreme loyalty, grows share of spend and triples the incidence of customers recommending your brand on social media and to friends and family? And can this be measured, designed and activated in a repeatable way?

The 10 Pain Points of Customer Growth Management:

Weak Organic Growth: Companies fail to unleash organic customer growth.

KPIs Don’t Deliver: Customer satisfaction and Net Promoter fail to predict growth.

Impossible to Fix Dissatisfaction: Investing in satisfying the “dissatisfied” is a low-return task.

Disappointing CX ROI: Customer experience (CX) breakthroughs remain elusive.

Segmentation Lacks Insight: Segmentation and targeting schemes are useful, but lack unique insight.

Low Return on Innovation: Advantages from investments in innovation are short-lived.

Growing Reliance on Promotion: Promotion eroding customer profitability.

Analytics Not Identifying Opportunities: Data analytics only generate incremental opportunities.

AI Investments Undifferentiated: Spending to keep up with AI without differentiation.

Processes Not Keeping Up: Traditional processes are cumbersome, and still rely on guesswork.

So, if satisfaction (or mitigating dissatisfaction) isn’t the key, where does true customer growth come from?

Shifting from Fixing Touchpoints to Building Motivational Value-Chains
Customer experiences consist of hundreds of touchpoints, but customers themselves are driven by hundreds of possible motivations.
We often think we’re being customer-centric when we ask customers to rate what they like and dislike about an experience. But true customer-centricity starts with human motivations—and then builds the value-chain backward from that foundation.

Why This Matters
Companies may be prioritizing the wrong touchpoints—those that don’t actually drive customer growth. Dissatisfied customers typically complain about the basics: bad service, return policies, long wait times, etc. Businesses, in turn, focus on “fixing” them.
However, high-value customers may never tell you which touchpoints actually build an emotional connection. And if higher connection leads to more profitable behaviors, then most companies operate with a big blind spot. So what are the implications for customer experience (CX) analytics and investments?

Beyond Satisfaction: The Power of Motivational Connection
“Connected” customers as those who link personal motivations to a specific company or brand. The data shows that once customers move beyond satisfaction to connection, they: 1.) Increase spend levels, 2.) Exhibit higher loyalty and 3.) Increase advocacy behaviors. So, as we increase a company’s composition of connected customers profitable revenue will follow. That’s predictive!

Most marketers would agree that stronger, more personal connection is better. But given its impact on customer value and growth, why isn’t there a common, data-driven way of managing it? Marketers and CX professionals may believe, and even pursue such connections. But without a reliable, repeatable and predictive way of making tangible the customer’s mental model, instinct or subconscious drivers of behavior, it’s nearly impossible to assure C-level executives that the company’s investment in customer or human “connection” has a pay-off.

If companies can identify who their connected customers are—and which connections matter most—and validate the impact on customer value and growth, then marketing and CX strategies that prioritize connection will be supported across the company.
With these insights in hand, businesses can pursue growth while also addressing dissatisfaction. As one client put it after seeing the data:

“Oh, so we can walk and chew gum at the same time?” – Health Plan CX Director

People Have Their Own, Natural Motivational Predispositions
A management instinct is to keep customers happy and give them what they want. Businesses already deploy a number of valuable practices to help with this. Understanding life stages and various demographics help tailor offerings to generational customers, for example. In banking, the financial needs of a Gen Z customer are very different than those of a Boomer. Through segmentation marketers learn and leverage insights that help them design and feature products and services that relate to these demographic segments more appropriately.

However, these practices are highly commoditized and even expected as all competitors in a given industry apply similar strategies and tactics. As a market research leader at a top U.S. bank commented, “Our segmentation is useful, much like a crate designed to hold soda bottles. But it tells me little about what we should do.”

“Descriptive” is Not “Predictive”
So much data is at our disposal today. Also, more sophisticated analytics are available to managers through various SaaS and software tools. It’s disheartening to think: “What if that data isn’t even predictive?”

People who appear identical on paper—same age, family size, income level, or even shared hobbies—may have completely different personalities and motivational predispositions.
Would all players on a soccer team have the same personalities and motivations just because they play soccer? Or because they’re all between 18-29?

We may be able to describe people using demographics and psychographics, but does that mean we truly understand them—especially their motivations when it comes to banking, shoes, fast food, insurance, health products, or any other category?

More importantly:
Do managers know what drives these customers to purchase, pay more, tell others, or try something new?
Do they go beyond surface-level descriptions to truly predict behavior?
In a social situation, you might meet a group of people who appear to have a lot in common. But as you get to know them, you realize they’re all very different individuals. Shouldn’t customers be given the same latitude to be counted for their deeper, more personal motivations? Isn’t that the territory of deep personalization and predictive motivation?

Marketers may respond, “We’ve always included emotions and values in our marketing!” But legacy practices may incorporate such human insights into a brand campaign, making consumers in general see the brand in a more positive light. This is not the same as people-based analytics, where value-chains are built back from the actual motivations that actually personalize relationships and drive profitable behaviors.

The Cost of Misalignment
Marketing often works off the premise that if we hit the right chords, consumers will pursue our brand and become motivated customers. Marketers start with their traditional, often generic segments, then use qualitative research to find out what really motivates them. This process severely dilutes a brand’s ability to target, connect and drive behavior based on motivational predisposition.
Relying on flat (non-predictive) descriptive data misses the opportunity to truly know and grow customers at scale. This is the supreme blind spot and massive lost opportunity that sits idly in practically every business today.

For example, a bank marketing team did not see that 32% of a bank’s Millennial family customers earning $150K+ also want their bank relationship to make them feel more confident about their future while 39% didn’t care about that at all. So, if the bank is generically targeting the demographic segment, what messaging and experience touch points are they using to target and engage this cohort? Does the bank click down to more generic messaging, or is it worth optimizing against the “future motivated” group? By trying to address the generic demographic group there’s inevitable dilution and missed opportunity. This bank needed the data to sort through this, more accurately target and identify 9-digit growth opportunities and boost ROMI (return on marketing investment) over 40%.

The best, most financially rewarding strategy: Invest in, connect with, and grow customers based on what they intrinsically seek from the relationship.

Why Motivational Precision Matters
Shifting focus to the customer as a human being is something often talked about—but walking the walk is a bit more challenging?
As mentioned, the key is to move beyond the hundreds of touchpoints that make up the experience and focus instead on the hundreds of motivations that define a customer’s relationship with a brand. And work back from there.

From the most functional and rational needs to the most primal and psychological desires, we can now know—with precision—the motivations that most matter. The cost of not doing this misses the data-driven reality that motivations have vastly different predictive powers. Without a firm grasp on which motivations drive profitable behaviors, companies miss big, untapped opportunities. And despite the explosion of available data, this motivational piece is still largely missing or diluted within existing insights.

Marketers and researchers often say, “We know what motivates our customers!” But if those motivations are not directly tied to individual people and their actual, profitable behaviors, then strategies and tactics will be misaligned.
Too often, these insights:
Sit buried in research reports
Surface as hints from focus groups
Not tied to an actionable target
Non-aligned to behaviors across the journey
Exist outside structured data, making them non-actionable and unscalable
This disconnect can even create internal confusion. One focus group participant (of a traditionally defined group) might emphasize price, while another highlights how the brand affects their social standing. If these differences aren’t understood and assigned to customers at scale then marketing and CX resources risk substantial dilution.

Motivational Precision Across the Journey
Often, marketers discover a motivations and generically incorporate it into their marketing. Yet, if we knew that different motivations drove different behaviors across the customer journey we want to be far more precise.

For example, if one uses a front-of-funnel motivation to drive consideration to fuel a cross-sell strategy, that motivation will have miniscule predictive power of cross-sell behaviors. Yet, the practice of misapplied insight has been baked into practices for decades—wasting effort and opportunity.
The real advantage comes from aligning the right motivation to the right behavior at the right moment—turning motivational insights into scalable, growth-driving actions.

4 Things to Know That Change Everything

Predictive Precision Matters: From hundreds of motivations—functional and rational to perceptions of the brand to primal and psychological—knowing which one’s alone or in combination most predict the profitable behaviors is critical to success.

Different Motivations Drive Different Behaviors: There’s so much we know about a person, from life stage priorities to proclivity for playing pickle ball. The question that needs answering is which motivations drive profitable behaviors in exact journey stages. Sometimes a motivation that puts a brand into consideration has little predictive power for driving repeat purchase, cross-sell or pricing power.

People Who “Look” the Same Aren’t the Same: Companies often group people by their descriptive elements e.g., urban millennials with HH Income $150,000 or more. Or, tech-savvy fashionistas. As one spends time to know the person, descriptive attributes often fade into the background. How we “know” the person shifts from features to what makes them tick. And, it’s that motivational predisposition that most predicts profitable growth.

People Are Really Bad at Explaining Their Most Predictive Motivations: These insights must be in a company’s data set. When a dissatisfied customer is asked why they don’t like their bank, they’ll write paragraphs and may even suggest that the bank is evil and should be taken over by the government. If someone who loves the bank is asked, why, they typically answer, “They’re great!” If one’s bank relationship fulfills a deeper, personal need, the customer may not be able to articulate feelings that may lie in the unconscious mind. Or, in a focus group, a connected customer may want to look more “smart” than emotional. So, what matters most often goes unsaid.

Mastering Motivations
To drive real growth, the practices and processes we rely on must make growth discipline as clear and actionable as customer satisfaction.
Once a company can master the motivational side—identifying and activating the right motivations to drive the right behaviors—it will build meaningful relationships at scale. And, more importantly, it will be able to predict and sustain growth.

Quantifiable, Billion-Dollar Opportunities
By applying these emerging practices, billion-dollar growth opportunities can now be crystallized within a company. These opportunities aren’t speculative—they are quantifiable pathways based on real customer behaviors.
While improving satisfaction has its place to keep the trains moving, this new approach is about driving top-line growth in new and significant ways.

A Scalable, Actionable Framework
This program equips participants with:
✅ The tools to uncover and activate key customer motivations
✅ The knowledge to predict and drive profitable behaviors
✅ The practices to lead transformational growth within your organization
And importantly, these new disciplines don’t replace, but build on existing information, data, and systems.

The Program Cycle 📊 Measurement → 💰 The Financial Prize → 🎯 Targeting → 🔥 Motivation → 🚀 Activation → 🔄 Performance
From strategy to activation, this framework closes the loop—ensuring that every effort is measured, optimized, and repeatable.
While the primary focus is on customer growth, mastering these principles will enhance acquisition as well—not just winning more sales, but winning better customers.

Case Study: Unlocking Motivational Growth in Multinational Fast Food Chain

The Challenge: Stagnation of Scale
One of the world’s largest QSR chains was losing momentum. Growth in the category was fragmenting: specialized brands like Chipotle and Panera were gaining share, while legacy giants—McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, Subway, Taco Bell—were nearly flat. While Fortune reported a 6.05% CAGR 2021-28, the industry was also fragmenting. Leading up to COVID, the industry itself was nearly flat as the burst of new chains, food delivery and technology hadn’t yet become drivers. n addition, like most marketers, the chain was investing in new menu items, testing them and conducting focus groups to delve into what customer really wanted. This case illustrates how companies are so laser-focused on their products and competition, that they hold back in “how” they really know their customers.

Conventional Segmentation: Useful but Limited
The brand relied on traditional segmentation (families, burger lovers, drive-thru regulars). This framed who they served and what they bought, but failed to differentiate based on consumer motivations. Competitors used the same lens, creating a race to parity. Brands were well understood, but brands didn’t quite understand the underlying drivers of loyalty.

The Blind Spot: Motivational Connection
Fast food is ever-present in culture, but data from Motista revealed that large chains had barely half the share of motivationally connected customers compared to specialized brands. The gap was striking: demographics looked flat, but motivational segmentation revealed up to 60% swings in loyalty and value. Yet, there was no actionable data on the customer on this dimension.

Motivational intelligence pointed to better ways to focus and prioritize customer investments.

Traditional Metrics and Insights Falling Short
The chain leaned on Net Promoter Score (NPS). But when layered with motivational data, blind spots were revealed:
Only 60% of Promoters were motivationally connected.
Connected Promoters were 57% more likely to have visited in the past 30 days and more than twice as likely to feel the brand was “worth paying more for.”
So, are Promoters as a segment even that valuable?
Traditional metrics were masking the most valuable customer sub-segments.

A Category Was Already Trading on Motivations
Heavy fast food users (10+ visits per month) were rarely loyal to a single chain. Motivations lived within people, not brands. The industry was already trading on these drivers—without measuring or leveraging them for competitive advantage. Quite literally, fast food was sitting on a gold mine but couldn’t get out of its own way.

The Growth Opportunity
By activating motivational connections, the chain could tap into the emotional energy of medium and heavy users. Driving just one additional visit per month would equal a $1.7B revenue opportunity—far exceeding the lift from new menu items, discounts, or promotions.

Takeaway
The case proved that growth isn’t just about new products or sharper pricing—it’s about building relevant human connections. If chains just focus on delivering quality experiences, they will miss the next untapped wave of growth. For legacy brands in mature categories, this represents the next frontier of competitive advantage.

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Curriculum

Unlocking Motivation – Part 1- Year 1

1. Part 1 Month 1 Customer Measurement
2. Part 1 Month 2 Customer Motivations
3. Part 1 Month 3 Motivational Segments
4. Part 1 Month 4 Journey Precision
5. Part 1 Month 5 Quantifying Growth
6. Part 1 Month 6 Scaled Personalization
7. Part 1 Month 7 White Space
8. Part 1 Month 8 Touchpoint Optimization
9. Part 1 Month 9 Empowering Teams
10. Part 1 Month 10 Stakeholder Socialization
11. Part 1 Month 11 Designing Analytics
12. Part 1 Month 12 Better Acquisition

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Program Objectives

The following list represents the Key Program Objectives (KPO) for the Appleton Greene Unlocking Motivation corporate training program.

Unlocking Motivation – Part 1- Year 1

1. Part 1 Month 1 Customer Measurement – When measuring your customer experience, learn how to develop a new, high-impact KPI that goes beyond traditional customer satisfaction (CSAT) or Net Promoter Score (NPS) systems. As the saying goes, “you manage what you measure”—so our program starts with measurement as the foundation. The workshop begins with real-world examples of measurement systems, highlighting both their challenges and opportunities. While providing a clear, step-by-step approach to formulating a superior customer metric for your company, it also delivers the knowledge needed to assess and prioritize a broad range of KPIs, including those currently used by your company for benchmarking. Participants will gain insights into why these advanced methods yield more predictive measurements, as well as the precise steps to create a “new and improved” customer metric. Traditional measures, even at their best, tend to be only moderately predictive—our approach raises the bar by identifying customer insights that drive real growth. Why a new KPI? Examples will demonstrate how advanced measurement outperforms CSAT, providing a clear path to customer-driven growth. The economic impact of moving a dissatisfied customer to satisfaction will be compared to new metrics that predicts high-value customer behaviors. These improved metrics have been shown to reveal customer value that is, on average, 52% higher than that of “highly satisfied” customers. This untapped dimension of customer value is often overlooked—remaining a hidden growth opportunity by current measures. These methods have delivered proven results across industries. Case studies from banking and financial services, health insurance, retail and other industries will illustrate how these metrics translate into increased profitability and retention. The evolution of KPIs over time will also be examined, reinforcing why modern companies must go beyond basic customer experience metrics that were founded decades earlier. An implementation roadmap will enable workshop participants—through a structured process—to define, build and integrate an enhanced customer measurement framework. A practical work plan for KPI design and execution will be provided, ensuring timely application. By the end of the session, participants will have the tools and strategies needed to implement a next-generation KPI that unlocks hidden customer value, predicts revenue growth and grows long-term relationships.
2. Part 1 Month 2 Customer Motivations – To optimize growth investments, companies must go beyond surface-level insights and systematically quantify what truly motivates customer behavior. Instead of focusing primarily on company performance across hundreds of touchpoints, this workshop shifts the perspective to prioritizing customer motivations—the key drivers of value and engagement. Performance must now be redefined through motivations. Customers are driven by a broad spectrum of motivations, from functional and rational to deeply psychological and primal. These motivations vary among individuals, yet they determine the strength of a brand’s connection with its audience. In this session, we will redefine performance as the degree to which your company or brand connects with the motivations that matter most—those that customers inherently associate with your industry. We will also introduce a new layer of data that enhances the predictive power of the customer insights you already collect. While current data—such as product preferences, brand perception, demographic profiles, and psychographics—is valuable, much of it is descriptive rather than predictive. Without an accurate way to identify, measure, and manage customer motivations, companies risk underutilizing customer value. They key is to tap into deeper motivations. Some of the most powerful customer motivations are unspoken, operating at a subconscious level. Because they are abstract and elusive, many companies overlook them or outsource this critical knowledge to advertising agencies and ad hoc research studies. However, integrating these deeper motivations into your customer data strategy makes them as actionable as any data point. This workshop serves as the critical linchpin—not just for this program, but for your company’s ability to identify and convert hidden growth opportunities. While it’s easy to refine operational elements like shortening wait times or improving return policies, failing to master the motivational landscape means missing out on the most predictive drivers of customer value. Many companies have attempted to measure customer motivations or emotional connections in various ways. What’s missing is a scalable, systematic, and repeatable approach. These motivation-based metrics should be integrated alongside traditional performance metrics to create a more complete view of customer behavior. Customers are influenced by rational benefits, brand perceptions, value, trust, and more. This workshop will introduce a structured framework for categorizing and prioritizing motivations across the functional-to-emotional spectrum—helping you predict growth with greater accuracy. By blending a mix of motivations into a single, cohesive strategy for each customer segment, companies can develop optimized messaging platforms and customer experiences that drive higher engagement and revenue. Just as companies apply data-driven precision to areas like product development, finance, and operations, customer motivations should be mapped with the same level of detail. This workshop will provide the tools to do just that—empowering your company to turn motivational insights into measurable business growth.
3. Part 1 Month 3 Motivational Segments – Most companies rely on logical, industry-standard segmentation methods, grouping customers based on demographics, usage patterns, or spending behavior. While these methods can be useful, they often fail to distinguish between low- and high-potential customers—which limits their ability to drive real growth. Behold, there is now a Y-axis. No, not just the double-entendre of “why,” but while the X-axis plots customers by historical spend, a Y-axis now plots customer potential. That changes everything! First, the workshop will examine and bring to light the problems with traditional segmentation. Customers within the same segment often display wildly different motivations and priorities. Some prioritize price, while others are driven by deeper emotional or psychological needs—such as being a better parent, feeling a sense of belonging, or achieving personal success. This disconnect can leave marketers wondering: “Which motivation should we emphasize?” The result often blends customers with diametrically opposed predispositions. But we put them in a box, and it’s nearly impossible to re-organize people based on their potential. The reality is that traditional segments do not account for motivational predisposition—a crucial factor that determines how customers naturally connect with a brand or category. This blind spot dilutes targeting efforts and limits ROI, creating inefficiencies that most companies unknowingly absorb into their strategies. This workshop will introduce a new dimension: Motivational Predisposition. Unlike conventional segmentation, which categorizes people based on what they look like or how they’ve behaved in the past, motivational predisposition helps you understand how they’re wired as people—the deeper, more primal motivations that drive their decisions. And, it’s actually this piece that most predicts the customer’s value to your organization. By shifting to this new lens, companies can: 1.) Identify high-potential customers—not just based on past spending, but on future growth potential, 2.) Prioritize efforts on customers with the strongest predisposition to connect with the brand and, 3.) Fine-tune messaging and customer experiences to align with intrinsic motivations rather than surface-level characteristics. Most segmentation models classify customers based on their historical spending patterns, assuming that high spenders share similar motivations. This is rarely true. A more powerful approach involves adding a Y-axis—one that plots customer potential based on motivational predisposition. This allows companies to: See which customers have the highest propensity for future engagement and value creation. Avoid misallocating resources to customers who look promising based on past behavior but lack deep brand alignment. This work session will turn traditional segmentation on its head. Instead of defining segments first and then trying to uncover motivations, you’ll learn how to start with motivational predisposition—allowing you to: 1.) Prioritize the right customers from the outset, 2.) Sharpen messaging and positioning for maximum impact and 3.) Boost ROI and accelerate growth by aligning strategies with what truly drives customer behavior. Through real-world examples, you’ll gain hands-on experience in: Organizing, measuring, and prioritizing customers based on their motivational predisposition. You’ll enhance existing segmentation models with new predictive insights and, you’ll be applying this intelligence to customer growth strategies. By meeting customers more than halfway, companies can unlock hidden growth opportunities, strengthen customer relationships, and dramatically improve marketing effectiveness.
4. Part 1 Month 4 Journey Precision – To drive results, marketing and customer experience (CX) strategies must be precisely aligned with the behaviors that most impact lifetime value and revenue. In the marketing world, we often ask, “What motivates customers?” We typically analyze this by segment, focusing on how customers use and value a company’s products and services. However, predictive data reveals a crucial insight: motivations that drive behavior at different journey stages can vary widely—even within the same segment. Without this precision, a strategy can completely miss the mark. For example, the most predictive motivations for top-of-funnel consideration may be the least predictive for deeper-funnel actions like cross-sell, repeat purchases or increased spending. To maximize customer lifetime value, companies must identify and leverage the precise motivations—from rational and functional to primal and psychological—that drive CLV-building behaviors at each stage of the journey. The workshop will provide a new strategic framework for 1.) Organizing motivations across the spectrum, from functional to primal, 2.) Understanding how different motivations drive different behaviors at various journey stages and 3.) Mapping and optimizing growth-driving behaviors with a clear, data-driven approach. By applying this precision to your marketing and CX strategies, you will enhance customer engagement, increase revenue and maximize long-term value
5. Part 1 Month 5 Quantifying Growth – With a new predictive KPI, you can now build advanced growth models that quantify substantial financial opportunities for your company. See how leading banks, retailers, insurance companies and fast-food chains have leveraged these metrics to identify and measure discrete growth opportunities—transforming strategic decision-making. A well-defined financial prize sharpens management’s focus and justifies resource allocation. Since these new measures are significantly more predictive, we’ll break down a variety of approaches into clear, mathematical steps, using real-world case studies from companies that have successfully implemented these strategies. Modeling growth prizes is possible because these new metrics and KPIs are predictive, revealing 9- or 10-figure growth opportunities, ranging from broad improvements in top-level performance metrics to highly specific customer value-driving initiatives at organization, strategic and segment levels. You will gain new perspectives on your customer base, learning how to 1.) Identify high-potential customer growth segments, 2.) Quantify billion-dollar growth opportunities, 3.) Build predictive financial models based on moving more customer to peak levels, 4.) Develop strategies to increase customer share of spend, frequency of visits and cross-sell opportunities and 5.) Convert store customers into omni-channel relationships that drive revenue expansion. By integrating these growth metrics, your company can define, measure, activate and convert high-impact opportunities. All it takes is a new lens that makes what previously looked flat into mountains of opportunity. This session will help participants become champions of organic growth as they use data-driven methods to identify and unlock significant financial gains for their companies.
6. Part 1 Month 6 Scaled Personalization – Learn to apply predictive insight at scale. Because in today’s world, rich, predictive insights are only valuable if they can be applied at scale. This session will provide the processes and pathways to achieve that capability. For too long, the study of human motivations has been disconnected from customer data. Deeper insights were often uncovered during campaign development, led by ad agencies, while customer relationship management (CRM) systems remained limited to transaction history, basic personal details, and third-party data. The result? Even the most valuable customers—those with strong motivational predispositions that could drive higher lifetime value—were treated like any other customer. Messaging and promotions were one-size-fits-all, failing to differentiate between high-potential customers and those inherently less likely to be loyal. Personalization efforts were often superficial—limited to using a customer’s name, past purchases, or rewards status. These gaps still exist in the use of Consumer Data Platforms (CDPs) which put data into the hands of marketers and CX professionals on-demand. But if these insights lack the most human-centric, predictive piece, then the gains are merely speed and access. Even lifestyle-based segment attributes (e.g., recognizing that a high-net-worth brokerage clients are 23% more likely to be vegetarians) provided some relevance, but not enough to build deep, predictive relationships. But until we can almost literally tap the shoulder of a customer with foresight into what they really want from their relationship with the brand, customer marketing and growth programs will be diluted by this lack of intimacy. The future of CRM needs to integrate motivational data. To achieve true scaled personalization, we must bridge the gap between predictive motivation insights and descriptive CRM data. The goal is to humanize segments—leveraging motivation-driven connections to predict and enhance customer value. This workshop will provide its participants with: 1.) How to model motivational insights into CRM data and sustain them over time, 2.) Implementation strategies for different use cases, from marketing personalization to growth programs and 3.) How to enhance first-party data with a predictive motivational layer, creating a more valuable asset for targeting, retention, and customer experience. By integrating motivational intelligence at scale, companies can redefine personalization, unlocking higher engagement, stronger loyalty, and greater revenue impact.
7. Part 1 Month 7 White Space – Unlock powerful brand insights with these new tools and practices. To position your brand effectively—whether universally or to focus on high-value customers—you need deep, predictive insights. The same process can be adapted to focus on a single segment or optimize white space across multiple segments. What top-tier clients have discovered with this intelligence is that their brand and messaging platforms may lack the most predictive motivations. Many marketers have incorporated human-centric or emotional appeals in their messaging. However, with this new breed of high-precision predictive analytics, leading brands can now pinpoint more personal, category-leading motivations that are truly up for grabs. It’s always important to remember: motivations belong to people, not to brands or categories. This process uncovers a broader spectrum of aspirations, desires, values and human-based motivations—often extending beyond those commonly associated with the category. We’ll see how different sets of motivations add predictive power to key behaviors, while we also want to gauge whether your brand is in a position to own these motivations in the marketplace. Armed with this data, we follow a structured analytical process that identifies the optimal set of motivations—functional, rational, primal and psychological—that align with growth opportunities and brand ownership potential. The process is comprised of five key steps that will ultimately deliver the optimized motivational “white space” for your brand. The results will give your brand an unfair advantage building connection with the highest value customers in your industry.
8. Part 1 Month 8 Touchpoint Optimization – Across industries, companies have to support and manage 100s of discrete touch points across the journey. Which ones matter most? Which one’s should we prioritize? Which ones should we minimize? It’s not sufficient to latch customer satisfaction scores on touchpoint experiences to monitor for problems. Nor does “asking” customers which touch points are most important going to reveal insights for growth. In fact, based on extensive research across industries, these disciplines keep CX professionals focused on maintenance, not on growth. Using examples of real-world data, new methods and processes will be introduced to identify the smallest number of touchpoints that most impact customer connection and value growth. Unfortunately, scouring VoC, social media and other feedback mechanisms keep teams focused on a whack-a-mole process with no real progress toward understanding which touchpoints—or combination of touchpoints—most likely deliver “surprise and delight” experiences that drive engagement with high-potential customers. And, as addressed in earlier workshops, the angry and dissatisfied customers are far more verbal than those that love their experience with you. The right information makes building the best experiences as clear and precise as chasing down problems and putting out fires. After mapping touchpoints across journey stages we’ll learn to structure customer feedback in a way that also drives connection and growth. Then, we can prioritize investments and, through the motivational lens of high-potential customers, conduct exercises to lead design and investment prioritization. What’s most rewarding is that this new dimension of intelligence will simply tell you more about what your best, highest-potential customers really want from their experience and relationship with you. This alone provides a fuller view of your customer’s needs, desires and aspirations and stimulates in-house creativity to give them “more” of what really drives value with “less” reliance on promotion and trying to do good at everything!
9. Part 1 Month 9 Empowering Teams – With robust data, models and strategies in place, it’s critical to equip creative and executional teams with the best tools for hitting the bullseye. This topic warrants its own workshop because those leading the process must direct, engage and inspire teams across the marketing and CX to bring these insights to life. So, how do we materially shift the executional mindset and know-how? Traditionally, teams operate within the clear, measurable realm of customer satisfaction (and dissatisfaction), resolving service issues, return policies, online functionality and staff interactions. Communications are usually straightforward conveying information about new products and promotions. But, what about experiences and messages that empower customer confidence, enhance their self-esteem or create moments of joy they share with family or friends? Delivering on these deeper, more emotional connections requires a shift—one driven by insights into customer motivations, growth opportunities and precise tactics that predict engagement and long-term value. You’ll have the data and insights, but now you need tools and practices for effective team briefings. This workshop will provide: 1.) Storytelling techniques to bring customer motivations to life, 2.) Actionable briefing frameworks that inspire precise, creative execution, 3.) Human-centered customer profiles, 4.) Interactive exercises to engage teams and unlock their latent creativity and 5.) Processes to capture and prioritize insights from internal work sessions. When done right, we don’t just connect customers to our brands, we connect employees to our customers. This approach ensures that creative and executional teams move beyond transactional fixes and instead, craft experiences and customer communications that resonate, inspire and drive lasting growth.
10. Part 1 Month 10 Stakeholder Socialization – New processes and metrics won’t just enhance CX and marketing performance—they will also drive shareholder value. This This session will equip you with the skills to tell that story effectively. Successful initiatives bridge execution with leadership buy-in. In a previous workshop, we focused on briefing and guiding executional teams—both internal and agency partners. Now, we turn to another key responsibility for emerging leaders in this Program: crystallizing growth opportunities and presenting them to executive management. To achieve buy-in, customer growth needs to be translated into business and financial impact. Because customer growth directly impacts profitability and ladders up to shareholder value, these efforts can strongly resonate with CFOs and other business-minded executives. Instead of merely seeking budget approval for campaigns and various CX projects, you’ll be able to demonstrate tangible financial impact tied to these investments. Having successfully socialized these strategies to C-level executives, line of-business (LOB) leaders, boards and even shareholders, we’ll share best practices for crafting compelling business narratives and illustrations. To help participants build a convincing business case, the workshop will provide: 1.) Proven presentation templates that illustrate marketing and CX investment impact, 2.) Financial storytelling techniques that link customer activation to revenue growth, 3.) Data-driven frameworks that demonstrate ROI and shareholder value and 4.) Real-world examples of successful executive and board-level buy-in strategies. Marketing executives have long grappled with data, strategy and resource allocation—often relying on intuition and faith to secure leadership support. As the old advertising saying goes: “The campaign is working—we’re just not sure which half.” Of course, many marketers have conducted research and built smart strategies and campaigns. But it’s time to move from guesswork to precision, and place bets on what’s most predictive. Now, with the right data and metrics, you’ll be able to replace uncertainty with clarity—presenting a clear, data-backed case that directly links customers, activation investments and growth outcomes into financial performance.
11. Part 1 Month 11 Designing Analytics – While these new approaches to growth often lead to a large, strategic financial opportunity, we’ll share real-world examples of a how a wide range of initiatives can achieve unexpected and superior results—including those you’re working on right now! While this Program is focused on high-value strategies for identifying and activating customer growth, the insights gained extend far beyond their initial applications. Different companies and teams are working on a variety of more unique or customized projects and initiatives. As the Motivational lens is often additive to any customer-facing challenge, it’s important to have the skills and tools to design the data sets and complementary analysis that will deliver answers. Across the board, this new layer of intelligence will fill critical gaps in traditional approaches, providing a missing linchpin for sustainable growth, such as: 1.) More precise targeting, 2.) Motivating them in the most effective way, 3.) Solving a retailer’s one-and-done problem, 4.) Launching a customer referral program for a brokerage firm, 5.) Enhancing AI and technology applications, 6.) Converting age-in health plan members to Medicare, 6.) Enhancing sales associate training, 7.) Growing omnichannel customer engagement, 8.) Guiding creative of a new ad campaign, 9.) Improving store design, 10.) Inputting store location or ranking markets for investment, 11.) Refining and boosting performance of a rewards program, 12) Optimizing merchandise mix,13.) Motivating more profitable healthcare use and so on. The key is to prepare participants to think about and apply this new “lens” on challenges and opportunities that come your way during the normal course of business. Because there’s always new use cases to solve!
12. Part 1 Month 12 Better Acquisition – While this Program focuses on customer growth—the impact on your company’s performance will only grow if you’re acquiring new customers that match your most valuable ones. With the deeper knowledge you’ll gain on your customers will be in a better position to identify, attract and acquire customers with higher lifetime value potential. Of course, the best time to build that case is when you can clearly demonstrate the heightened value and responsiveness of an existing segment of customers. Today’s hyper-competitive digital world has had a profound impact on acquisition practices. The ability, today, to intercept someone shopping for a pair of shoes, a mattress, a loan or anything else and direct them right to e-commerce is effective and empowering. It has also made acquisition marketing more tactical and promotional. It’s pretty easy to find articles today that “strategy is dead” as strategic growth is sidelined for the more immediate reward of the digital acquisition machine. However, this program is not about defying gravity; this is the environment operatives must now compete. However, by deploying the learnings and assets from customer growth, companies can do more than win sales, they can win more high value customers. And, as the company invests in new forms of targeting, messaging and customer experience, those high-value prospects will be attracted to your brand. As you invest in tools and tactics to drive customer growth, ROI will only accelerate if you can feed more like-minded customers into the growth engine you are building.

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Methodology

Unlocking Motivation

Program Planning
The Program, Unlocking Motivations, is a 12-month course designed to give customer marketing professionals a powerful new tool set from which to identify, quantify and activate large customer growth opportunities. The Program will ground itself in measurement, but quickly and comprehensively define new, more predictive ways of leveraging customer motivations to better segment, target and deliver customer experiences and messaging that drive customer value-building behaviors and sustainable organic growth. The key philosophy of the Program Plan is to transfer insight and know-how to its participants. While workshops cover myriad use cases generated from major brands in various industries, the Program is focused on the essential high-value stages—and the tools and processes—that put participants at the precipice of identifying and converting large, 9- 10-figure growth opportunities that already exist, hidden, within their customer asset. At the core of these analytics and activation tools is a new, more predictive way to build data on customers. Some of these methods rely on seeing data in a new way, unlocking growth. Participants will be looking at the same business, the same competitors, the same customers as before. Yet, they will now be able to see growth opportunity that had been invisible through the lens of traditional methods and approaches. To achieve this state, this Program uses proven methodologies for organizing motivational data around people and behaviors. In many cases, existing legacy practices must be broken and challenged. Yet, at the same time, as most companies have made multi-year investments in more traditional tools and methods, the new practices that will identify and help companies identify and convert significant financial prizes will be built to work with existing systems. The Program is built in a logical sequence, and will be rich in real-world examples to help participants connect the dots from learning to application within their own companies.

Program Development
The Program itself is an organized synthesis of applying a proven, predictive data methodology on customers to critical, high-value stages and applications of a customer marketing and customer experience operation. The sequence of the Program is built on how large companies have learned, built upon existing practices, crystallized financial opportunity, developed and prioritized activation, socialized their initiatives and measured success.

In this way, the Program is developed to enable and empower its participants to lead their own companies and teams through similar processes. Clear illustrations of the new, previously hidden predictive power of these data-driven approaches will compel participants to apply this to their own businesses. Clear steps, processes and analytics will shift the power of these tools into the hands of Program participants.

Very often, when a team member brings a new way of doing things inside their company, they meet resistance. Woven into the entire program—and with one workshop devoted to team enablement and another to socialization—are models and tips that keep stakeholders focused on growth outcomes while also building on tools and methods already in place. The Program will transfer disruptive capabilities to its participants, but it will also endow them with sophisticated and nuanced techniques for navigating and leading the organization.

Program Implementation
Key elements of implementation are built on three key pillars: 1.) Transfer of understanding and knowledge, 2.) Real-world cases and illustrations and 3.) Practitioner enablement via tools, methods and processes. Some additional color:

Compelling Stories: Like with any learning, we remember stories more than facts and details. Lessons will be taught, documented and transferred, but always in context of human, real-world narratives.

Real-World Data Illustrations: This Program will benefit from actual (sometime redacted) data from large retailers, banks and financial service companies, insurance, fast food, hospitality, including cross-industry data to bring certain points alive. The data provides tangible proof that the lessons learned here are worth learning and applying.

Clear Financial Prize Models: Business people frequently hold revenue growth and profitability up as the ultimate prize. But often we’re re-using past initiatives and practices to achieve as good—or better—results. This Program—and participant use of it within their own enterprises—will be anchored to tangible and measurable growth prizes that exceed the ordinary. When the prize is clear and compelling, and the path to monetization is as well, then the probability of success is vastly improved.

Specific Process Steps: All solutions shared have been developed and implemented in the real-world. The key steps are spelled out helping participants plan and execute within their own organizations.

Case Study Illustrations: Case studies combine real-world stories with action and results. While every case is unique, they also help illustrate the universal application and impact these new methods have to large, growth-hungry companies.

Exercise Templates: What’s interesting about this Program is that while the essential elements are data-driven and analytical, it’s about humans: customers, employees and executives. While data points us to the right customers, opportunities and touchpoints (for example), helping people in the business context to hone their human connection skills and become prolific in their own thinking is an added superpower. Exercise templates will stimulate and accelerate the human learning and creativity muscles that give smart programs that prized X-factor.

Advanced Scaling Methodologies: Implementation is always at scale, but to different degrees. How the data is put to use can vary, including the application of large-scale look-alike models. Participants should be prepared to grow the Program step-wise or scale up according to the needs and opportunity.

Benchmarks and Reference Points: One of the keys to learning is comparison. Think about data from almost every other part of the business: finance, HR, manufacturing. There’s always benchmarks and comparisons to steer us in the right direction and help us make decisions. As most companies already use certain KPIs and methodologies, the “change” or the “lift” will always be compared to what you—and your organization—already measures and knows.

Socialization and Teamwork: While the Program will mainly focus on data, process and methods, everything happens in a context. Often, those who actually have to go and produce the customer-facing executions, digital interfaces, customer campaigns and customer touchpoints don’t thrive on data and analytics. Yet, they need to be engaged and empowered to execute on strategy. Likewise, the company’s CFO and other executives may not want to know the details or nuance of the strategy, but they want to see the impact on financials. Participants will feel more persuasive and effective if they have proven ways to present and achieve buy-in to their growth initiatives.

Program Review
This Program not only represents a new set of practices, processes and tools, it represents a new way of thinking about a company’s role in the lives of its customers. In a sense, it brings the contract (or exchange) that produces value between the two parties into a new light. The Program will reach its peak performance if participants become champions of these new insights and capabilities within their organizations. How can this be observed and measured?

Engagement: The subject matter is compelling, pointing the way to business results and human insight. These features should cause team members to lean in with the Program participant playing a leading role.

Application(s): The ultimate review is successful application. Participants applying Program elements in their companies, advancing the data and predictive analytics is the biggest win. A positive indicator is that Program practices are supporting large growth initiatives as well as a range of other use case challenges.

Reference Tools: Even seasoned practitioners rely on their reference materials to prepare and guide others. Participants using their reference materials and advancing their initiatives are signs of Program effectiveness.

Socialization: Nothing validates influence more than watching others in the organization incorporating ideas and content into their presentations, plans and direction that you brought into the company. Socialization indicates that support is widespread and resonating at all levels within the organization.

Feedback: Feedback from participants is a critical form of learning, both for evolving and improving the Program for future Participants.

Evangelizing: Transformation occurs when participants—or others educated and mentored by them—become independent evangelists. Today, much of what will be taught is a secret weapon. Success is watching it root and proliferate into the marketplace.

Ease-of-Use: Nothing is easy in business, especially progress. In fact, people by nature rely on familiar processes. “How it’s done” is easier. When we enter business we are eager to learn how it’s done from others. Then, we apply the same practices over and over again. Applying this Program for the first time will be challenging. Ease-of-use may be a bit aspirational. But productive, independent use is a valuable benchmark. Teaching, instruction and assessment will all be aiming in the direction of utility.

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Industries

This service is primarily available to the following industry sectors:

Banking and Financial Services

The banking and financial services has been among the leading industries to adopt and operate on customer experience measurements such as customer satisfaction and Net Promoter Score. Sourced from experience with several banks, including of the top five US banks, and a relationship with one that spanned nearly ten years, these efforts were mostly driven by retention-based objectives. The assumption being that customers are generally complacent i.e., they are motivated to stay with a bank as long as a bad experience doesn’t drive them away. So, if the bank can reduce the incidence of bad experiences and, when conflicts or problems do occur, resolve them quickly, attentively and to the customer’s satisfaction, then attrition rates will decline. While this effort and line of logic is rationale, it’s very defensive and not very growth oriented. Moreover, the predictive power of satisfied customers to stem attrition has weakened over time. Even back twenty years an executive in charge of these matters shared an observation: “This is the first time that our CSAT scores went up and our retention went down.” On the marketing side, large banks were mostly focused on brand image-building and, in a more tactical way, promoting their cards, loan business and other products accordingly. Obviously, it made sense for banks and other financial institutions to segment customers by life stage and affluence, as those descriptors do affect one’s financial needs in life. However, as every bank was doing the same these approaches were merely competitive necessities. Sometime after the financial market crash banks began to shift away from acquisition toward cross-sell as the main engine for growth. For brokerage, while new investor clients are always a target, efforts to boost AUM and use of products and services were also prioritized. And, of course, fintech was introduced and began to expand its share, especially among Gen Z and Millennials. Having worked with prominent banks, brokerages and lending companies during these periods. I’ve been on the front-line of helping these institutions adjust their strategies to building and deepening relationships with customers, driving not only retention but cross-sell and behavioral advocacy. These evolving practices and processes span customer experience (not just a quality experience, but a meaningful experience), customer segmentation (prioritizing those among traditional segment structures most likely to grow their value with the bank or brokerage), messaging, targeting and measurement (that keeps the organization focused on growth performance). The value of these new disciplines will only increase in value as financial institutions increase investments in AI and other technologies designed to deliver personalization at scale.

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Retail

The content, insights and processes of this program were battle-tested with a national footwear chain, prominent luxury department store, national auto parts chain, dollar stores, e-commerce giants and others. Many retailers are selling the same exact products, leaving little “apparent” room for differentiation and category-defying growth. In some sectors, average growth is less than 2-3% and no competitor enjoys more than 3% market share. A KPI like customer satisfaction may be a table stakes requirement, but it doesn’t predict growth of customer value or revenue. Moreover, almost every retailer is extending its investments in e-commerce, technology and in loyalty and rewards programs. At the same time, retailers are taking advantage of digital marketing to lower advertising and media expenditures. Digital media and e-commerce have also given many retailers the power to intercept buyers who’ve entered the purchase funnel. If you’re selling mattresses, identify and target online shoppers of mattresses! These new capabilities have eclipsed the efforts not just win sales, but to win new valuable customers. As such, nearly every retailer, from value to premium, complains about their store’s over-reliance on promotions. The billion-dollar question for retailers is how, exactly, do you raise the bar in crowded, fragmented and commoditized sectors? There is a way! And, in fact, by implementing these practices retailers like those above have been able to identify and activate 9- and 10-figure growth opportunities. By raising the bar on customer experience measurement, enhancing how retailers view customer segments, using analytics to pinpoint strategies and tactics, retailers in the most competitive and commoditized sectors can seize growth opportunities. In most cases, retailers rely on certain attributes to define their highest value customers, such as: past spending, premium products purchased, household income, satisfaction or promoter incidence, customer duration, etc. These descriptive and historic metrics are useful, but they often miss other essential propensities that are far more predictive of future behavior and value. Segments may use definitions like “value segment” or “fashion-seeker,” and simply miss the motivational insights that most drive profitable purchase behaviors. Retailers may also consider that providing better service to drive share of sales. Nordstrom, for example, built a gold standard reputation for its customer service. Yet, it struggled with profitable growth while smaller competitors like Bloomingdale’s built deeper, more meaningful—and profitable—customer relationships. Many factors explain any given situation. But a new breed of battle-tested practices and new perspectives can give any retailer a clear path to customer value and revenue growth as a way to get above the profit-eroding hyper-competition that defines most retail sectors.

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Insurance

No industry is more obsessed than the health insurance industry in measuring customer satisfaction. There are good reasons: payer reimbursements are determined by CAHPS scores and other measures of member satisfaction. Yet, health insurance tops most industries with its leading composition of dissatisfied members. Dissatisfaction has been significant and consistent over time, so what is the upside of so much investment? First, for any insurance but especially that for healthcare, attitudes are negatively skewed in a category where premiums are high and, especially among younger, healthier usage is low, resentment can grow. Yet, even in this context, many members—based on their own nature—see their health plan in a positive light. Knowing who these people are and what motivates them represents an opportunity to grow a payer’s share of satisfied and connected customers. And these customers are far more likely to renew, upgrade and advocate. Among individual and Medicare customers dissatisfaction resides as members have more agency over their health plan purchases and healthcare engagement. Health plans, however, do experience a unique paradox. In nearly every industry, revenue and profitability correlate directly to usage. In healthcare, it’s the opposite! The heaviest users of healthcare are the least profitable. However, the ability to influence their behavior can pay huge dividends. It’s just different behaviors, including medical compliance and more cost-effective use of health services. By focusing primarily on moving dissatisfied to satisfied, insurers are missing the upside opportunity of growing the number and value of members motivated to have deeper, more meaningful relationships with their health plans.

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QSR & Restaurant Chains

From fast food or fine dining, customers are buying much more than just the food. They are buying everything from convenience to family connection to feelings of success and happiness. Whether a national fast food chain or a premium steak house, a set of practices and processes can build customer value and define, depending on size, billion-dollar growth prizes. Indeed, keen restauranteurs have this sense of what the customer wants and needs in the experience. Marketing and CX managers deal with the stuff of taste, portion, healthier choices, speed, service, feature menu items, price and promotion. As one restaurant brings innovation to market, those advantages are short-lived as competitors match the offering and lower the price. At the same time, most chains are measuring themselves to the industry based on customer satisfaction, hardly a differentiator for the consumer. This program will illustrate with clarity and convincing data that by changing the way restaurants measure their relationships with customers can open up hidden growth opportunities. For example, one large fast food chain wanted to increase its share of medium to heavy users, those who eat fast food 10 times or more per month. First, they tried by adding more menu items and juiced the rewards program. Makes sense! But it didn’t move the needle. Re-casting what dining at the chain meant to a segment of high-propensity customers put the chain on a new path of growth. These customers often spread the wealth across several chains. By looking at their business—and their customers—through a new lens, customers could then be stratified based on personal needs and propensities, insights that were missed using existing data and implementing normal practices like running focus groups. New approaches zeroed in on subsegments that translated into a $1.7B growth opportunity. Targeting, messaging, emphasizing certain customer touch points, enhancing rewards and measurement were all aligned with this strategy in which the chain executed and expanded to great success. On the luxury side, an admired a premium steakhouse chain rose to success based of its founder-inspired focus on the intimacy of the experience, allowing friends and family to re-connect. Their commitment to the right experience among certain customers drove chain expansion for years. It all came down to how well the owner “knew” what customers were really buying.

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Consumer Goods

Consumer goods, including CPG, face the same struggles as service sectors. Once the gold standard of brand marketing, most brands have lost share to niche and store brands. While research may reveal that a traditional brand leader has the advantage front-of-funnel, it more and more struggles to “close the sale.” A shopper may put a premium brand of laundry detergent or frozen dinners in their cart only to be barraged with promotions, couponing and end-cap displays that challenge brand loyalty right up to check-out. Like the waning effectiveness of CSAT to predict retention in retail and financial services, CPG leaders have seen their priceless value of the “brand” also diminish. In some instances, brand managers have seen their all-important brand health scores increase while their market share and profit margins have decreased. The other enduring problem is that in an industry historically fueled by product innovation, the ROI on those investments has also fallen off as competitors quickly match those new features throwing the competitive set back into promotional mode. This constant cycle of reactive incrementalism tends to erase differentiation and drive prices down, favoring the discount brands. In this cycle, the category itself can spin further and further away from consumer motivations. Old models of brand-building no longer work as the competitive dynamics have evolved. But there are answers and new disciplines to drive healthy organic growth.

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Travel & Hospitality

Travel and hospitality are often at the mercy of intensified competition and loyalty programs. Yet, significant opportunities exist to connect with consumers both on an enduring relationship basis as well as boosting value for a specific trip or vacation. While business and pleasure have their own dynamics, many travelers converge their travel due to the benefits they accrue with major airlines and hotel chains. Like with other industries, travel and hospitality have been too fixated on measures of customer satisfaction (CSAT) which doesn’t really solve hyper-competitiveness and commoditization. While CSAT surely needs to be measured and managed, it is no longer predictive of future growth behaviors. Every category, especially travel and hospitality, need ways to target and motivate customers to boost growth behaviors, like visiting more often and increasing the value of their travel and stays. The problem with CSAT or NPS scoring is that behavior is conditional. For example: “Based on your last stay WOULD you recommend (hotel) to a friend or family member?” 8-9-10! I would! So, a CX manager or marketer may get the sense that this customer is going to influence future business, including their own choice of airline, hotel or destination. What this measure really said was that since the hotel (for example) was clean, service was good and the breakfast buffet wasn’t bad, that I “would” recommend it. Data shows that’s a long way from “would” recommend (conditional) to actually recommending (behavior). Or coming back, or staying longer. Perhaps more than any other category, travel and hospitality operates in rich motivational territory. Disciplines need to get more data-driven and predictive, and more targeted and personalized. A prominent casino resort in Las Vegas made a billion-dollar capital investments to expand the resort, add on-premise venues for dining, retail and entertainment. But it wasn’t until they zeroed in on how these “experiences” enhanced and delivered on what various cohorts wanted from their visits did they see response and conversion rates from their marketing campaigns and customer-value begin to grow and accelerate. The point is that the industry has a massive inventory of motivations and must only learn how to measure and activate them for maximum return.

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Locations

This service is primarily available within the following locations:

New York

New York is the U.S.’s (and maybe even the world’s) hub of human-centric marketing. It remains one of the world’s most dynamic commercial hubs, with unmatched scale and diversity across industries such as retail, banking and financial services, insurance, travel and leisure, consumer packaged goods (CPG) and advertising. With a GDP exceeding $2 trillion, the state’s economy—anchored by New York City—is a critical driver of national and global business activity. As the world’s ultimate melting pot and a value-system forged by freedom of diverse immigrant cultures and religions, an unspoken force of individualism and opportunity set the pace for consumer pursuit of self-expression and a better future.

The retail sector ranges from flagship luxury brands and department stores to e-commerce startups and mass-market chains. New York’s status as a global trendsetter makes it both a proving ground and pressure cooker for retail innovation. In banking and financial services, New York City is home to the headquarters of major institutions including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, along with a vibrant fintech ecosystem. Insurance giants such as MetLife, AIG, and New York Life have longstanding roots in the region, while new entrants are leveraging digital channels and AI to reshape customer service.

New York’s QSR and restaurant sector is as fast-paced and diverse as the city itself. From national chains to iconic delis and innovative ghost kitchens, New York serves as a high-volume, high-pressure testing ground for menu innovation, delivery models, and customer service enhancements. Space limitations and labor costs push operators to adopt tech-enabled efficiency—including mobile ordering, self-serve kiosks, AI-driven demand forecasting, and real-time customer feedback systems. With fierce competition and an always-on consumer base, success hinges on speed, personalization, and operational agility.

In travel and leisure, New York’s tourism economy—driven by global visitors, Broadway, world-class dining, and iconic cultural institutions—continues to rebound post-pandemic. The sector increasingly relies on personalization and data-driven insights to attract and retain high-value customers. Meanwhile, the CPG industry is served by a dense network of brand owners, distributors, retailers, and advertising agencies. Companies like PepsiCo, Unilever, and Colgate-Palmolive maintain a strong regional presence, benefiting from proximity to trend-savvy consumers and media decision-makers. Agencies like Ogilvy & Mather, BBDP, DDB, TBWA, JW Thompson, Y&R and thousands of newer, emerging firms remind New Yorkers of their unique role in defining consumerism in America and the world.
Across all these industries, customer expectations are evolving rapidly—driven by digital-first behavior, on-demand service, and the seamless experiences pioneered by tech-native companies. To remain competitive, firms are accelerating investment in customer analytics, AI, machine learning, and cloud platforms. These technologies enable personalized marketing, predictive service, real-time insights, and more agile responses to market shifts.

Professional services firms, consultancies, systems integrators, and agencies—ranging from Accenture and Deloitte to boutique specialists—play a critical role in guiding digital transformation. Their influence spans strategy, data architecture, implementation, and change management. In an environment where consumers can switch providers with a tap, leveraging data to deeply understand and serve the customer has become a business imperative, not a luxury.
Amid this pace of change, individuals must also evolve. Whether working within an enterprise or serving clients, professionals must raise their sights—not only mastering emerging solutions but also strengthening their leadership, collaboration, and communication capabilities. Staying current on trends like AI-driven personalization, omnichannel experience design, and responsible data use is essential for remaining credible and effective. In a region where the bar is high and competition is fierce, those who lead with insight, empathy, and innovation will create lasting impact. And those who embrace new technologies and capabilities while keeping a firm hand on strategic growth principles will become the next generation of leaders.

New York’s scale, diversity, and intensity make it one of the most demanding and rewarding markets in the world. Success here depends on one thing above all: the ability to continuously evolve—with your customers, your tools, and your skills.

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Chicago

Chicago stands as a vital commercial and cultural center in the U.S., with a diversified economy spanning retail, banking and financial services, insurance, travel and leisure, and consumer packaged goods (CPG). As the third-largest city in the country, Chicago offers a unique blend of Fortune 500 muscle, middle-market strength, and startup energy—all supported by world-class infrastructure and a deep talent pool.
In retail, Chicago is home to major national chains, e-commerce innovators, and experiential storefronts that cater to a dense and demographically diverse population. Retailers leverage Chicago as a central test market due to its representation of broader U.S. consumer behavior. In banking and financial services, institutions such as Northern Trust, Discover Financial, and BMO operate alongside a growing fintech and payments scene. The city is also a global hub for trading and derivatives, with firms like CME Group and CBOE driving market innovation.

The insurance industry maintains a strong foothold in Chicago, with players such as Allstate, CNA, and Kemper headquartered in the region. These firms are increasingly turning to AI and data analytics to improve risk modeling, claims automation, and customer engagement. In travel and leisure, Chicago’s mix of global business travel, Midwestern tourism, sports, and a vibrant food and cultural scene make it a key market for loyalty programs and digital guest experiences.
The CPG sector is anchored by major companies like Mondelez, Kraft Heinz, and Conagra Brands. Chicago’s central location and logistics advantages make it a strategic hub for supply chain, distribution, and marketing operations. In all of these sectors, customer expectations are rising fast, driven by mobile-first behaviors, frictionless commerce, and the influence of digitally native brands. A powerful pedigree of consumer-driven marketing grew organically in Chicago, partly through prominent ad agencies such as Leo Burnett, Foote Cone & Belding (FCB) and NW Ayer & Son. These iconic firms paved the way for a proliferation of marketing service firms that make Chicago one of the centers of consumer-led marketing.

Chicago is a major foodservice headquarters city—home to giants like McDonald’s, Portillo’s, and Wendy’s regional operations—making it a strategic hub for both QSR innovation and operations management. The region balances scale with a deep appreciation for food culture, meaning chains must excel in both consistency and quality. Data-driven customer insights, dynamic pricing, and integrated loyalty and mobile platforms are driving value.

To stay competitive, Chicago companies are ramping up investment in customer analytics, AI, omnichannel experience design, and cloud-based platforms. These technologies power more personalized, predictive, and adaptive engagement—helping firms differentiate in crowded, often commoditized markets.

Professional services firms—from global consultancies like Accenture and PwC to specialized agencies and tech integrators—support these efforts, delivering everything from strategy and architecture to AI implementation and user experience design. Chicago’s collaborative business ecosystem, with strong links between corporate, civic, and academic sectors, also fosters innovation through incubators, accelerators, and data-focused partnerships.

For individuals, this environment demands continuous learning and leadership growth. To deliver value in such a competitive and fast-evolving market, professionals must stay sharp on emerging technologies and also hone the soft skills that drive trust, influence, and change. Knowing how to align data, technology, and human-centered design is no longer optional—it’s foundational.
Chicago’s strength lies in its blend of legacy industries and forward momentum. To thrive here, companies and professionals alike must embrace innovation that begins and ends with the customer—and keep raising their own bar in the process.

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The San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Area is one of the most influential economic regions in the world, renowned for its blend of technology leadership, financial sophistication, and cultural progressivism. Its industries—including retail, banking and financial services, insurance, travel and leisure, and consumer packaged goods (CPG)—operate at the intersection of innovation and customer experience, making the region both a test bed and trendsetter for what’s next.

In retail, the Bay Area is home to pioneering brands and platforms that are redefining omnichannel commerce—from legacy players adapting to the digital age to disruptors born in the cloud. Tech-forward consumer expectations drive constant innovation in personalization, logistics, and payment experiences. Financial services are anchored by institutions such as Wells Fargo and Charles Schwab, alongside a vibrant fintech and crypto ecosystem. The region is a magnet for next-gen platforms in payments, lending, wealth tech, and decentralized finance.

Insurance providers—both traditional players and insur-tech startups—are increasingly focused on data-driven risk modeling, digital claims handling, and proactive customer engagement. Given the Bay Area’s exposure to seismic and climate-related risks, demand for smarter, tech-enabled insurance solutions is high.

QSR and restaurant brands operate in the heart of food-tech disruption and ethical consumerism. The region embraces automation, sustainability, and alternative proteins, with firms like Sweetgreen, DoorDash, and plant-based startups reshaping how people discover and experience food. Technology adoption is high—AI-enabled kitchens, app-based ordering, predictive inventory management, and delivery robotics are increasingly common. With high labor costs and demanding consumers, data-driven efficiency and experience personalization are critical for operational success.

In travel and leisure, San Francisco and Oakland are rebuilding strong post-pandemic tourism momentum while prioritizing sustainability, digital convenience, and curated experiences. With high expectations from both domestic and international travelers, companies are leveraging analytics and AI to deliver more tailored, dynamic services.

The CPG sector, particularly in food, beverage, wellness, and sustainability, is thriving with a mix of global players and mission-driven startups. Brands like CLIF Bar, Amy’s Kitchen, and Impossible Foods represent a broader shift toward clean label, purpose-driven consumption—where customer trust and digital engagement are as critical as product quality. Clorox is an anchor CPG giant headquartered in Oakland with top recognized brands in a number of prominent CPG categories.

What sets the Bay Area apart is its technology DNA. Companies here are not just adopting customer analytics, AI, and automation—they’re inventing the next generation of it. From machine learning-powered personalization to predictive service models and real-time customer journey orchestration, firms are racing to deliver experiences that are intelligent, adaptive, and seamlessly integrated. New giants also converge industries, so Apple, Meta, Alphabet, Uber and others define themselves in multiple consumer categories, from search to social to retail to food delivery.

Consulting firms, design studios, and cloud-native integrators—many of them based in or near Silicon Valley—play an essential role in helping enterprises implement these technologies at scale. In such a forward-looking environment, the bar for customer experience is constantly rising, and differentiation increasingly comes down to how well a company anticipates and meets evolving needs.

For individuals working in this high-expectation market, continuous learning is non-negotiable. Technical fluency, leadership agility, and strategic foresight are essential to stay ahead. The Bay Area rewards those who pair curiosity with execution—who understand not just what’s possible with technology, but what’s meaningful to customers by vote of their visit and click behaviors.

In this region of relentless innovation, success belongs to the companies—and professionals—who evolve as fast as the world around them. Yet, the lure of technology can be so powerful that the powers of human connection to grow revenue and market caps of companies like Apple are often admired but infrequently emulated.

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Los Angeles

Los Angeles is a powerhouse of creativity, commerce, and cultural influence—anchoring key industries like retail, financial services, insurance, travel and leisure, and consumer packaged goods (CPG). With one of the largest and most diverse metropolitan economies in the U.S., L.A. combines global reach with hyper-local nuance, making it a strategic market for companies seeking both scale and trend leadership.

In retail, L.A. blends high-end luxury, streetwear, e-commerce disruptors, and multicultural brands that shape national and global tastes. From Rodeo Drive to digital-first storefronts, it’s a market where brand, experience, and personalization are everything. Banking and financial services in Los Angeles are defined by regional banks, fintech upstarts, and global firms with West Coast operations, all serving an economy built on entertainment, real estate, and international trade.

Insurance providers such as Farmers and Pacific Life operate in a region marked by demographic complexity and climate-related risk, both of which are accelerating the need for advanced analytics and digital channels. In travel and leisure, Los Angeles is a global magnet—with its tourism, sports, hospitality, and entertainment industries heavily reliant on personalized experiences, loyalty programs, and mobile engagement to attract and retain customers.

The CPG sector benefits from L.A.’s proximity to port infrastructure, supply chain hubs, and cutting-edge food, beauty, and wellness trends. Companies like The Wonderful Company, Herbalife, and dozens of emerging health and lifestyle brands use L.A. as both a headquarters and brand incubator. The city is also a leading influencer market, where digital experience and consumer sentiment can make or break a product overnight.

L.A.’s QSR and restaurant scene fuses cultural trends, wellness, and technology. It’s a top launchpad for health-forward, plant-based, and lifestyle-branded food chains. With intense demand for delivery and takeout, restaurants prioritize mobile-first strategies, loyalty, influencer partnerships, and hyperlocal marketing. Brands that win here harness customer data to create customized experiences, adapt quickly and leverage L.A.’s media and social influence to amplify engagement across digital channels.

Across these sectors, technology is no longer a back-office function—it’s central to customer engagement and competitive positioning. Companies are investing heavily in customer analytics, AI, cloud platforms, and real-time data pipelines to gain insights, personalize experiences, and respond quickly to market changes. In a city where brand relevance and speed to market are critical, the ability to predict and shape customer behavior is becoming a defining capability.

Los Angeles also has a rich ecosystem of consultancies, agencies, creative studios, and systems integrators that help companies design and implement end-to-end transformation strategies. From UX-driven mobile platforms to AI-powered personalization engines, firms are racing to create seamless, engaging, and data-informed customer journeys.
For professionals, this dynamic environment demands constant reinvention. Staying relevant means going beyond domain expertise to master emerging tools and frameworks, while also developing leadership, creativity, and agility. Whether you work in strategy, marketing, technology, or service delivery, the expectation in L.A. is that you move fast, think forward, and lead through innovation.

Los Angeles offers a unique blend of cultural relevance, consumer influence, and business opportunity. Success here means understanding the customer deeply—and evolving your own skills quickly.

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Dallas

Dallas is one of the fastest-growing and most economically diverse metropolitan regions in the United States. As a major business hub with deep roots in retail, banking and financial services, insurance, travel and leisure, QSR and consumer packaged goods (CPG), Dallas offers a powerful mix of corporate scale, entrepreneurial energy, and pro-business infrastructure. With continued population and job growth, it’s a region where both competition and opportunity are accelerating.

In retail, Dallas is home to major national chains, global luxury brands, and a growing e-commerce and logistics ecosystem. Companies like Neiman Marcus, JCPenney, and a wide range of regional players operate in a market known for savvy consumers and high expectations around service and convenience. The area’s role as a transportation and distribution hub further strengthens its influence in retail supply chains and last-mile innovation.

Banking and financial services are core to the Dallas economy, with major operations from JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Capital One, and regional powerhouses like Comerica and Frost Bank. The city is also seeing an influx of fintech and payments firms, drawn by its talent pool and lower cost of operations compared to coastal markets.

Dallas is a national center for insurance, with companies such as Southwest, Globe Life, and the rapidly expanding operations of State Farm and
Allstate. The region plays a leading role in underwriting, claims, and customer support innovation, with a growing emphasis on automation, digital experience, and advanced analytics to improve service and profitability.

Dallas combines a thriving restaurant scene with a strong concentration of national and regional QSR brands, including Yum! Brands and Chipotle operations. With its robust economy and family-oriented demographics, it’s a growth engine for drive-thru, curbside pickup, and multi-unit expansion. Dallas operators are leaning into CRM, AI-powered loyalty, and operations automation to scale quickly while maintaining customer satisfaction.

In travel and leisure, Dallas benefits from robust business and leisure travel, supported by major carriers like American Airlines and an increasingly vibrant hospitality and sports ecosystem. Personalization, loyalty strategies, and mobile-first experiences are becoming essential as travel demand rebounds and customer preferences shift.

The CPG sector thrives in Dallas due to its central location, extensive logistics infrastructure, and proximity to large consumer markets. Firms such as Frito-Lay (PepsiCo), Keurig Dr. Pepper, Kimberly-Clark, and dozens of emerging food and wellness brands leverage Dallas as a base for both innovation and distribution. The market also benefits from strong ties to national retail buyers and a growing focus on omnichannel execution.
Across these industries, customer expectations are rising rapidly, and companies in Dallas are investing in AI, customer analytics, cloud platforms, and automation to stay competitive. These technologies enable more intelligent, data-driven decision-making—from marketing and sales to service and product development—delivering better outcomes and more meaningful customer engagement.

Dallas also boasts a strong ecosystem of professional services, consultancies, and implementation partners helping organizations modernize. Yet in a market that prizes execution and results, technology alone isn’t enough.

Professionals across functions must also focus on personal growth—sharpening their knowledge of emerging solutions while strengthening their leadership and adaptability. In a fast-moving, results-driven region like Dallas, standing still is not an option. The ability to evolve with your customers—and your company—is what will set tomorrow’s leaders apart.

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Program Benefits

Achievements

Wells Fargo – Elevating Customer Connection for Growth

“We know there’s something up there above satisfaction.”

I recall my very first meeting with the Wachovia head of customer experience who then brought us over to Wells Fargo when the bank was acquired in 2008, in the wake of the financial crisis. The bank was among the top performers of CSAT as measured by JD Power, the American Customer Satisfaction Index and even our own tracking of the financial services industry. We could see first-hand that while CSAT measures were strong and, in many cases, improving, customer value metrics like retention and the number of financial products with the bank were either flat or decreasing.

Indeed, our firm was pioneering new measurement of customer connection that not only provided a data-driven answered to what’s “up there above satisfaction,” it proved to be far more predictive of profitable banking behaviors than CSAT, NPS or other ways of measuring the customer relationship. At this point, large banks were shifting their orientation more toward cross-sell measured by to the degree a banking customer concentrated their banking and financial needs with the firm. As such, beyond the task of integrating Wachovia customers into Wells Fargo, a long-term goal of improving competencies and success of driving cross-sell became a critical operational objective.
I served as the lead strategist and analyst on a multi-year engagement with one of the nation’s largest financial institutions, overseeing end-to-end development and delivery of advanced customer intelligence programs. I led the design and execution of proprietary measurement frameworks that uncovered deeper, often unspoken customer motivations—insights that fueled hundreds of high-impact use cases across marketing, growth, brand strategy, and customer experience.
Working across the enterprise—at both the overall retail bank level and across various lines of business—I partnered with executive leadership, CX and marketing teams, and agency partners to translate predictive insights into actionable strategies. These initiatives directly informed top-of-house decision-making, enhanced CRM integration, improved brand and customer satisfaction metrics, and drove more personalized and effective customer engagement.
I personally ensured a high level of strategic rigor, data integrity, and business alignment throughout. This vantage point honed my ability to turn complex data into actionable insights and to align marketing and CX strategies with broader business goals—all within highly regulated, compliance-sensitive environments. The data provided a new lens on the customer and the business, but it also integrated and enhanced existing measures of CSAT, feelings of financial health, customer segmentation and other measures and programs. The source of data was also extremely helpful in understanding the impact of various industry events and variations in financial market conditions to the health of customer relationships.

Over time, Wells Fargo proved to be one of the leading banks in growing cross-sell and customer value. The role of our team and our distinctive data solutions supported numerous initiatives toward this accomplishment.

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Charles Schwab – Activation of Investor Motivations

“You wrote the HBR article? I have it right here!”

As we first began consulting with the team at Charles Schwab, we had a meeting with the senior marketing team. As we were explaining our capabilities and the prospective impact on their commercial enterprise, a senior executive suddenly connected the dots and realized that a cover HBR article, “The New Science of Customer Emotions,” was not only in her folder, it was co-written by me and my colleagues.
Over a multi-year engagement with Charles Schwab, I led strategic and data initiatives that helped transform how the firm understood and engaged with its investor base. Schwab’s well-known brand promise, “Own your tomorrow,” was powerful in concept—but like many firms in the financial services space, it was being delivered through relatively traditional segmentation approaches that didn’t fully capture the deeper emotional and motivational drivers behind investor behavior.
Working closely with Schwab’s internal teams, my data and analytics team applied a proprietary layer of predictive intelligence designed to uncover what truly motivates investors in their relationships with financial institutions—especially as it relates to how and why they allocate assets across multiple firms. Like most firms, the company had various ways of measuring customer satisfaction and “the brand.” Our work moved beyond demographics and basic behaviors to identify clients by their underlying relationship propensities that drive loyalty, trust, and ultimately, share of portfolio.
This intelligence gave Schwab a more actionable view of its client base and enabled the brand to more precisely align its messaging, experiences, and offers with the personal drivers of high-value investors. It also allowed Schwab to sharpen its interpretation of “Own your tomorrow”—translating that promise into targeted strategies that could meaningfully increase customer lifetime value, reduce “assets away,” and activate organic referral behaviors across its most strategically important segments.
Over the course of this partnership, I helped steward numerous strategic applications of this intelligence. In an industry where many products and services appear similar and are delivered within tight regulatory constraints, this deeper, predictive view of client motivations created a powerful and sustainable competitive edge.
Even more importantly, this framework was designed to be operationally scalable—enabling downstream analytics, CRM integration, and campaign activation at multiple touchpoints across the investor journey. The result was not just sharper strategy, but a more human, relevant, and trust-centered relationship between Schwab and its clients.

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Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts – Human Engagement

“In the business of human health we put them into a system that de-humanizes them.”

This wasn’t a statement from the client, but from a cultural anthropologist who consults with the health insurance and healthcare industry. This comment captured both the gap—and the opportunity—for health plan firms to gain advantage and drive results.
As the healthcare landscape shifted toward a more consumer-driven model, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA) recognized the urgent need to raise the bar on member engagement. With rising competition driven by Medicare Advantage and ACA plans—and with employees increasingly having more choices in their payer and plan selection—the organization needed a way to break through both market noise and legacy engagement models.
Over a focused two-year engagement, I led a transformative effort to redefine how BCBSMA understood and motivated its members. While traditional approaches relied heavily on demographics, health status, and standard satisfaction metrics, we introduced a proprietary, predictive intelligence layer grounded in a more human understanding of member motivations.
Our work centered on identifying the deeper emotional and behavioral drivers that influence how members relate to health insurance and healthcare. This insight was critical not only for marketing, acquisition, and retention efforts, but also in shaping strategies to encourage more profitable and health-positive behaviors—such as reducing emergency room usage, increasing prescription adherence, and encouraging wellness over crisis-based care.
Working in close collaboration with BCBSMA’s advanced research and analytics teams, we built a scalable segmentation framework that allowed the organization to identify, target, and engage members based on their motivational predispositions toward health and healthcare. This enabled the payer to align messaging, programs, and service experiences with what truly resonates at a human level.
The result was a dramatic shift—from a system built around traditional risk and utilization models to one that placed the member experience at the center, while still driving measurable business outcomes. Our solution empowered BCBSMA to strengthen acquisition, deepen retention, support upsell opportunities, and activate member advocacy—all while improving key satisfaction measures such as CSAT and CAHPS scores, which directly influence Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement.
Importantly, the client recognized our work not just for its strategic impact, but for its operational viability. We helped them move beyond theory to application—embedding a more human-centric, motivational lens into the organization’s broader member strategy. In an environment where it’s easy to become distracted by competitors, BCBSMA was able to achieve differentiation and performance by refocusing on what mattered most: a deeper, more personalized connection with its members.

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Subway – A Motivational Path to Billion Dollar Growth Prizes

“Somewhere buried in the consumer’s psyche is why they hide the bag their fast food came in.”

Like every national QSR chain, rewards, healthy menu items, value and even enviornmentally sensitive packaging sought to win the loyalty of the fast food chain consumer population. And, while customers may have had their favorite chains and favorite items, heavier fast food users spread their business across several restaurants.
Subway, one of the largest, and most recognized quick-service restaurant (QSR) brands in the world, was at a critical juncture—facing reputational fallout from its former spokesperson and preparing to launch a new suite of “healthy” menu innovations across its vast franchise network. The company’s CMO was committed to evolving the brand and saw predictive analytics as a vital tool to better connect with customers, restore momentum, and build a more profitable relationship with its core base.
Our team was brought in to do two things: assess the brand impact of the public controversy and, more importantly, apply our proprietary motivational intelligence to uncover fresh pathways for growth. Through advanced segmentation and behavioral analysis, we zeroed in on a few striking financial opportunities. For example, among medium and heavy QSR users (those visiting fast food restaurants 15+ times per month), if Subway could motivate just one additional visit per customer per month, the brand stood to unlock well over $1 billion in incremental revenue.
Our predictive framework revealed that, while the spokesperson controversy was known, it was not materially inhibiting brand engagement for most customers. Instead, the path to growth lay in more deeply understanding the motivations behind customer choice—beyond product features or nutritional claims.
Subway had historically segmented its customers by demographics, usage patterns, and menu preferences. Our approach added a critical new dimension: predictive insight into the personal, emotional drivers that shape QSR decision-making. This intelligence helped Subway shift from asking whether customers liked new menu items, to understanding why those items mattered—and to whom.
The marketing team used these insights to refine positioning, align product strategy with customer motivations, and activate a more resonant brand experience. This human-centric, predictive view of the customer turned raw data into an engine for growth—giving Subway the clarity to focus its innovation and experience investments where they would deliver the greatest ROI.
In a category where convenience and taste dominate, Subway gained a competitive edge by tapping into something deeper: the motivations that guide our personal decisions. Our work helped the brand move forward with confidence, informed by data but driven by what truly matters to its customers.

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Athletic Footwear & Apparel – Defying a Commoditized Sector

“In our business, when we find a lever to drive results, apply it to everything you can.”

This sentiment from the retailer’s past president captured the real-world relevance of what our motivational intelligence meant to the large U.S. chain.
In one of the most competitive retail categories—footwear and athletic apparel—a leading omnichannel chain faced the same challenge as every other player: how to grow in a crowded market where no single retailer holds more than 3% share, and nearly all carry the same brand-name products, from Nike and Adidas to Under Armour and beyond. Over seven years, I led a transformational data and analytics program that gave this retailer a durable competitive edge and growth paths that defied industry norms.
Competing on selection, promotions, and athlete endorsements was standard practice across the sector—but it wasn’t working. Margin pressures grew as price wars escalated, stores struggled for profitability, and e-commerce introduced new costs even as it expanded reach. Like most of its peers, the client relied on traditional strategies and demographics to guide decisions. But these approaches failed to identify one of the most valuable—and largely invisible—customer segments in the market.
Our team’s predictive motivational analytics revealed a powerful but underappreciated truth: the retailer’s greatest opportunity didn’t lie in upscale families or hardcore athletes, but in a modest-income segment motivated by self-expression and confidence—not discounts or fitness icons. These customers were willing to spend more with brands that understood them on a personal level and made them feel good, inside and out.
Armed with insights related to this consumer’s deeply personal motivational disposition, the client reoriented key marketing, merchandising, and experience strategies to resonate with this segment. It shifted away from intimidating athletic imagery and leaned into messaging that embraced real-life confidence and personal style. Promotions remained relevant, but the emotional fit and feel of the product took center stage.
This lens extended to nearly every strategic decision—from identifying optimal store locations based on local customer composition, to reducing one-and-done customer churn, to redesigning omnichannel experiences that treated customers as whole people, not disconnected store and online shoppers. This wasn’t simply a marketing research insight; customers were identified in their CRM that matched this segment’s motivations.
The results were profound. The client uncovered and activated against multi-million-dollar growth opportunities that had previously been invisible and continues to operate today with this motivational framework embedded in its core strategy.
As the lead strategist and analytics partner throughout this engagement, helping this high-volume, commodity retailer differentiate and thrive remains one of the most meaningful achievements of my career.

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More detailed achievements, references and testimonials are confidentially available to clients upon request.

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