Rick DeLisi

Long-term customer loyalty is arguably the most important element of any company’s future success and Rick DeLisi has been studying the psychology of customer interactions and their impact on loyalty for the past two decades. His “inside-the-customer’s-mind” perspective has made him a thought leader in helping companies evolve their service strategies to keep pace with the recent evolution of customer expectations and behaviors. He is co-author of two groundbreaking books: In “The Effortless Experience: Conquering The New Battleground For Customer Loyalty” (Penguin Books) he outlines why focusing on customer effort during service interactions is more impactful than chasing traditional metrics like CSAT (customer satisfaction) and NPS (Net Promoter Score). The Customer Effort Score is now being used by hundreds of companies worldwide. His insights on “experience engineering” have enabled service executives to re-think how they train and coach their customer-facing employees. In “Digital Customer Service: Transforming Customer Experience for An On-Screen World” (Wiley) Rick and co-author Dan Michaeli (CEO and co-founder, Glia) explore the evolution of customer service, presenting a compelling case for why service strategies that have generally been successful in the past are doomed to fail in today’s digital-first world. By transforming interactions that used to take place on the phone, into live human conversations that occur on the customer’s own screen, progressive companies are achieving a rare convergence of positive impacts: a far superior customer experience while actually reducing the cost of service, and creating a more engaging experience for their employees as well. A well-traveled speaker, Rick has delivered keynote addresses and hosted executive forums in 25 countries and over 100 cities, including New York, London, Paris, Sydney, Johannesburg and (his guilty favorite!) Las Vegas. He is noted for facilitating interactive participation and “enabling moments of self discovery” among audiences. Rick has also contributed numerous articles featured in the Harvard Business Review.

Prior to joining Glia he spent 15 years with Gartner (and previously, The Corporate Executive Board) as VP, Advisory in their Customer Experience and Customer Service practices. He also has experience in the airline and hospitality industries and began his career in journalism, receiving four Associated Press awards for Outstanding Feature Reporting. Rick has a B.S. in Communications from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and resides in the Washington, DC suburb of Ashburn, VA