John McCahan is a Customer Experience and Service Executive Leader, Board Member FullCircle. He joined the Board of FullCircle as an Independent Advisor in January 2025. Most recently, John led the CX transformation of the floral gifting e commerce company, FTD post-bankruptcy. He brings a broad range of customer centric contact center and customer experience strategic leadership, attained in various industries including automotive, banking, logistics, manufacturing and retail. John has led customer service transformations for both public and privately held companies.
At FTD, John implemented Artificial Intelligence in voice, digital and agent channels. He believes in building teams of people that effectively solve customer and client problems. His strong ability to build and foster powerful relationship fits his credo, “Find vendors and partners that fit your business.” Prior to FTD, John held leadership positions at Avon, Milacron, Fifth Third Bank, Target and Equifax.
John was a paratrooper and served 8 years in the US Army as a Captain on humanitarian and combat missions. He’s an Advisory Board Member for Execs in the Know, a CX thought leader community. Recently, he was named to the “100 Leaders Transforming Customer Experience.” John holds a Bachelor’s degree in History from the Pennsylvania State University.
Questions
- How has your journey propelled you to where you are today?
- What are the top three competencies or behaviors that you believe are critical for exceptional service delivery across all the industries you’ve worked in?
- What recommendations would you give to CX professionals who struggle to convince leadership that customer experience is just as important as the bottom line?
- Can you explain what you mean by finding vendors and partners that fit your business and why that alignment is important?
- Now, John, can you share with our listeners what’s the one online resource, tool, website or application that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?
- Could you also share with us maybe one or two books that you’ve read that have had a great impact on you? It could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you’ve read recently.
- Can you share with us what’s the one thing that’s going on in your life right now that you’re really excited about, either something you’re working on to develop yourself or your people?
- Where’s the best place that listeners can find you online?
- Now, before we close our episodes off, we always like to ask our guests, and I know you’ve shared like maybe at least two or three with us already, but do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you’ll tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you get derailed or you get off track, the quote kind of helps to get you back on track.
Highlights
John’s Journey
Me: So, John, we always like to give our guests an opportunity to share a little bit about their journey in your own words. I know I read this amazing bio, but it’s good to kind of hear in the guest words exactly how your journey propelled you to where you are today.
John shared that he became a customer service leader by accident, and he goes back and look at that from being an operator in the military and leading operations for his first civilian jobs, it was so interesting. He was leading Teamster union truck drivers and pilots for a freight company, and they had a contact center that was their 23rd of 23, it was the worst performing, it was in Atlanta, and it had threatened to go union, and they felt that if they brought in just a strong leader that understood union dynamics, it could either effectively go union or keep the union out and just make a better contact center. And that’s how he got into customer service.
And from day one, he began to love it. It just felt right, helping people who help others, and driving the business to change. He firmly believes that companies customer problems and where they fail is in how they execute in service, not how they interact with the company. And so, that failure occurs elsewhere, which causes then interaction to solve a problem. And if a company could literally fix all of its problems and execute perfectly every time, there would be no need for contact centers and customer service agents.
Me: We’re surely not there yet on a global scale, not even just in your country, just generally speaking.
Top Three Competencies for Exceptional Service Delivery Across Industries
Me: Customer experience is such a broad topic, and you have a wide range of experience across different industries, automobile, banking, logistics, manufacturing, retail, that literally covers I would say majority of the general economy in terms of everyday things that people have to do and interact with. If you were to share with us, maybe the top three things that you believe would stretch across all of these industries that you’ve had an opportunity to interface with, but they are critical for service delivery to be delivered exceptionally, client problems to be fulfilled. What would those three competencies or behaviors be across all industries?
John shared that he’s going to add it across business to business, so dealing with businesses well as dealing with consumers. And he thinks that top three are meet customers where they want to be met. And what he means by that is different age, demographics, countries, cultures, but be able, as a company, to meet those customers in what they expect, whether it’s in channel phone, text, digital, AI, bots, gentic AI, but meet those customers where they want to be able to interact. That’s one.
The other is taking the insights of what you learn, every company, no matter what industry he’s ever worked in to go into the contact center, whether it’s virtually or on the physical floor, you learn more about what the problems are in the company by talking to agents who deal with those direct consumers or those businesses on a half hour basis, on a minute by minute basis, every day, they know what’s going on in the company. They know where the problems are. They know what makes customers reach out and contact or be frustrated. And those insights capturing them in a great way to either to understand how the business works, to one, be open and transparent about it, meaning we know this is a problem, it’s always going to be a problem, there is no fix. Or two, this is something we can fix as a company, thus mitigate the reasons for those contacts and not have to spend as much time solving those problems if we actually fix them in advance. And he’s run into that in every industry that he’s been in, like, “Hey, if we just fix this one thing, we’re going to reduce contacts by 20%.” And that gets everybody in a company excited, the CFO, great, you’re going to cut cost. The HR team, great, you’re going to hire less people. The marketing team, great. We don’t have to deal with this problem. The logistics team, wow, you’re making it harder for us, John, but we get it. It’s all of those things. And those are really the big two.
The third one is internalized, is how to make the customer experience part of the company, part of the holistic centricity of everything, because you can have customer focused agents and sales representatives and account managers, but if other parts of the company are not customer centric and working on those same goals, then that company is never going to actually fix its problems, because it’s not company wide. And he’s been lucky to work for several CEOs that believe in customer centricity and make it the number one mission of the company, and they actually believe it and live it, and that’s been a joy to be the leader of CX in those organizations, because he had the C suite when he came into the room and talked about things, he was listened to and he was supported when he needed new technology or when they needed to address a company situation, whether it was a cost savings measure that caused angst amongst customers and started to impact our bottom line or loyalty, how do they go about fixing it and changing it? Or how do they go about saying, “Hey, that’s the way we have to operate now.” So, instead of delivering in two days, we’re going to deliver in three, get over it, advertise it and sell it. It’s a three-day delivery period.
Convincing Leadership of the Business Value of Customer Experience
Me: So, one of the things I liked about what you said a while ago was you worked in organizations that the leadership, they were already passionate about customer experience. And I know that across the board, CX professionals constantly struggle with that challenge that their C suite, they’re not necessarily being able to connect the customer experience and how the customer feels to the bottom line, and it’s kind of hard, especially when you hire somebody to come in and do a training session, or you do some market research, and you get this data, and they are expecting, I guess, instant results. And the reality is, if you’re dealing with people, you’re dealing with emotions, you’re dealing with behaviours and interactions, it’s not an overnight transformation. We don’t have magic ones to spread against people, and they just magically transform. What would be your recommendations to those persons who have those challenges in basically trying to convince their leaders that customer experience is important, just as important as the bottom line, just as important as all the other initiatives that organization may have strategically to grow, and to develop?
John shared that three things are really, one, finding the metrics that matter, two, being in the room where the decisions are made, and then three, living it. And so, the old United States Army phrase was, “Be, Know, Do.”
And it was what they were taught, what he was taught as a leader, be, know, do. And so, he thinks the being in the room where decisions are made is so powerful and important. He’s been in the process of transition and looking for the next role, and that’s one of his criteria, is, is he in the room where decisions are made, and when a company says, Oh no, we have somebody else. You’re going to report to the COO and the COOs in the room, and then he says, “Okay, well, thanks. Look for somebody else. I’m out.” Because he honestly believe and have learned over time that if that CX customer professional is in the room and can share appropriate data and information that it can keep everyone in line in that customer centricity, if it’s not driven by the CEO top down and lived and done in behaviour and action and everyday life. He’s met some CFOs that aren’t necessarily customer focused and are bottom line focused, and he’s watched them change.
The second part is cultural change. So, change in a company and transformation, though, he likes to think he can do it quickly, and likes to think in the past, he did it quickly. The truth is, change doesn’t become set to almost three years, and it takes brands a long time to get to that change and get rid of the old ways. Being a history major lets him understand the past is prolong and that it is a way to study and learn about the future, and that cultural change leaders have to stick with it and don’t just fall for, “Well, we’re going to go ahead and change this dynamic, and we’re going to go ahead and force customers into email because we don’t want to answer the phones anymore.” And it’s wait, hold on. Meet customers where they want to be met, if you have emergency situations and they need to get to the phone. How do you stick to that strategy? Maybe make it easier to be in chat, maybe make it easier in digital. But how do you augment voice with AI? How to make that phone channel still there because customers want to talk on the phone, and they may only purchase from you once if you block the phones from them, and you may never see them again.
And the third is knowing the metrics that matter. Now, he believes in the world of retail, one of the biggest metrics, he believes is loyalty and so lifetime value, does that customer come back? Retention? Are they buying and are they recommending? So, are they the sellers? Are they speaking highly of you as a customer in social media to their friends or people using friends and family discounts?
And being able to track all of that loyalty and retention is actually a way to say, and he’ll use at FTD when he first arrived, they were at less than a 1.1 LTV number for the year, meaning people bought flowers once, and that was it. By the time they got past bankruptcy, became profitable, and got almost to the five-year point that he was there, they were able to get up to about 2.3. So, they were able to take and increase the amount that a single buyer buys, and be less transactional and create that well, buy flowers for Valentine’s Day, and I’ll buy flowers for my mother, or I’ll buy two birthday flowers. And it became a because they had a good experience, they came back. And it became brand loyalty, versus looking for a discount and the cheapest one available, which is what the transactional world would tended to be about, who can be the best price at the best time and execute on that, versus how to get customers to come back.
So, those are kind of the three things he wants a leader to know. Is just get your foot in that door and stay in the room and speak the language of the people that you’re talking to. CFOs want to understand bottom line profitability and where are cost cuts and where are savings and where is increased revenue and human resource professionals want to know that you’re treating people well, developing people, building leaders. And the CEO wants to know that you’re being strategically effective. Logistics wants to understand that you’re a partner, not a, “Well, let me tell you what you’re doing wrong.” More of, “Hey, here’s what’s going on. How can we help get through this, and what should the messaging be?” And engaging through that.
Aligning Vendors and Partners for Business Success
Me: One of the things I loved that I read in your bio was, “We should find vendors and partners that fit our business.” That statement, resonated with me astronomically, and I kind of want you to elaborate on that, and just kind of explain to our audience what that means, because I think at times, we’re so focused on the persons who work directly in our organization. But the reality is that if you rely on external partners who help to provide the products and services that you provide to your end user, you have to work with people who are in alignment with what you’re doing, because if not, then your service delivery is going to be off so quick. Could you kind of just talk a little bit about that? I thought it was just a brilliant statement your credo.
John shared that he goes back to his time at Avon where when he first came in as part of due diligence with private equity and looked at the relationship between the customer experience service vendors that were business process outsourcers overseas, and the relationship was contentious at best. And he likes to look at it as if you take two funnels and put the narrow parts together, everything went through one pivot point, and it was just a penalties and QA and what’s wrong instead of collaboration.
And so, finding vendors that are willing to collaborate, who are open to tell you, hey, business, here’s your problem, here’s why all these calls happen. Is your great savings of no longer adding packaging material inside the box is causing more calls because there’s damaged product. When did that happen? And why? We want you to know, and then we can start looking at data. How much does it cost for the packaging? How much did we save? How much are we getting in or losing in refunds? How many damage, how much damage process, pack packaging, how many customers never come back because it’s damaged.
And it’s looking at all that data and realizing, okay, taking out the packaging was dumb, and the people that did that packaging was an important part of the business, and yes, it cost money, but there’s a reason. So, it’s that, just finding that listening to a vendor and collaborating, finding fit during the looking process or the RFP process. And do they align in vision? Are they a company upbeat, agent empowering, employee empowering, cutting edge AI using and are you as a company? If it is, that’s a mesh, whereas if it’s a very legacy company, then this is how we do it, we’re not interested in AI, and you’re a company that wants to go into AI, that’s probably not a good partner.
And then the other piece, he thinks is that the actual technology is vendors, some vendors, Oh, we can work with any technology, no, they can’t. And how is it most seamless and easy? And how does it interact with technology?
At FTD, he thinks it was interesting through some problems, he was asked by their CEO, what are the biggest problems you face? And he said, “Getting the technology I need to make customer experience better.” He said, great, you report to the CTO as of now, it was like midnight one random Wednesday night in San Antonio, Texas. And he started reporting to the CTO, and he learned how important roadmaps are. He learned what software developers, engineers and what those timelines and roadmaps look like, so that he could make smart business decisions to fit the process, but also in finding vendors. What vendor can do this seamlessly? How many APIs have to be written? What code has to be written? How can I fit that in the timeline? Where’s the ROI? Or how easy is it? Is it simple plug and play based on the back end systems that they’re using and understanding that side of fit, meaning, how do the technologies fit together, how seamlessly and how easy and at what cost, makes that fit so important, because then you can execute on change and new technology and move forward in ways that you weren’t ready to or would have had to wait a year for, now you can move quicker.
So, he thinks that fit part, it also goes to two of his other philosophies that he learned in the military. One is, “Fail fast, fail early and fail small” which is test. Test things on a really small scale, figure out if they’re going to work, gather data, and then decide, do we want to go big on this, and who do we need to talk to in the company to do this? That’s one.
The second one is, “Why ask for permission when you can sometimes ask for forgiveness.” and that’s another leadership philosophy he learned from the military, and he’s used that in business, sometimes made people mad, but it helps you move fast. And then he implemented voice AI, because some self-service was eliminated in the business without him being told, and their call volume spiked by 20% and so he got told, they pay you to fix things, figure it out. Like, he doesn’t have enough people, they’re like, figure it out.
He immediately hired voice AI that could integrate with his systems. Literally in a day they integrated, they did a test pilot, and it went beautifully. And they were able to reduce voice contacts by 35% so that 20% increase became a 15% cut. Everybody wondered, I thought you told us that the elimination of self-service was going to drive up your call volume. Well it did, but he implemented AI. Wait a minute, you implemented AI? Who told you, you could do that? No one. He just did it on his own, and it worked, and they are now 15% below where they were, so they’re more effective with equal customer satisfaction, customer retention, customer loyalty. And he’s not in the crunch of having to hire more agents because of the elimination of self service. Two additional philosophies are not necessarily for everyone, but they work for him.
App, Website or Tool that John Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business
When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without, John shared that he’s going to make it personal to, so ChatGPT is fun, but he uses Microsoft Copilot, and he uses it throughout the day in business, it doesn’t do things for him, it just makes what he does easier, which he believe is his philosophy on AI. It makes him be more effective, it makes his agents be more effective, it makes the companies he works with more effective. But we’re still as humans, making decisions at this point.
Me: AI is supposed to compliment what we do, right?
John agreed, it’s not too scary. He wakes up in the middle of the night and think of the new AI company is going to be named Skynet, and there’s going to be terminators coming all over the place, but we’re not there yet.
Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on John
When asked about a book that has had a great impact, John shared a long time ago, Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and in Your Life and as a historian who focused on history for history sake, and as a military leader, where, why change something if it already works? And starting to become a transformation person and realizing, he has to lead people to something new, and history can be in the way of that, or we can empower and say, this was driving in the past, and it didn’t work then, because, but here’s why it’s going to work now. So, “Who Moved My Cheese?” helped him do that.
And the other one is and now he’s losing the name of it, it’s in his bookshelf, but it is a custard or dynamic book. But he read that this past spring, and the title is eluding him. The name of the book is, Would You Do That to Your Mother?: The “Make Mom Proud” Standard for How to Treat Your Customers. And it is a book focused on customer service on how to look at things from a personal perspective as an agent and as a leader of agents and people who lead customer service, on how to be polite and logical and deal with customer problems in a way that is focused on the solution, not on why or policy. “Oh, the policy says I have to do this.” But being able to work with customers within limitations and help solve their problems in ways that are just astounding, and companies like Marriott do that. Nordstrom does it on a daily basis, and exciting to hear where customer service agents can bend over backwards.
He has a quick story that they did at FTD. It was right after they implemented some AI on customer insight. He got a letter, so a handwritten letter got scanned at her corporate headquarters and sent to him. It was a 91-year-old gentleman who sent flowers to his wife every month she was in an Alzheimer unit, and those flowers helped her each month. And he had something different every month, he had a theme, he’d been doing this for a long time. He (John) read his letter, and he was so disappointed in them that he thought, he’s going to call this guy.
And right before he called him, he looked in their systems to see how they handled it, and it turns out they had an agent. It was escalated from overseas to their tier one agent. The tier one agent used their system to see the customer interaction, contact and purchase. So, she immediately contacted him and said, “Hey, I’m giving you a refund immediately. I apologize for what happened, and I want to get some flowers sent out by a local florist tomorrow. You don’t need to worry about the cost.”
And as she talked about how come you send yellow roses? He said, my wife was born in Texas. She’s in an Alzheimer unit, and I am a former military veteran that on “D” Day I climbed the cliffs in the assault. I was an Army Ranger. And every month, I want to remind my wife, even though she forgets about us, that what our life means together, and those flowers help me do that.
And so, this agent ended up looking and as far back as their history would go in their system, he bought flowers every month, and she was able to go back 4 years. So, that’s 4 years every month this guy’ buying flowers with them. She gave him free flowers for the failed one, and then she went ahead and asked her supervisor if she could give two free flowers for the next two months. And then set up with him what those two flower bouquets would be and how they’d be delivered.
And she monitored them, and then she added him to our VIP list so that he would be monitored. And the reason was because he is a valuable customer, and because the reason and the emotional engagement and how he interacted with a bad situation that at first was bad with the first agent who stuck the policy, but the second agent was able to solve it in a way that just made this gentleman the happiest customer ever.
So, when he was able to talk to him, they’d already solved it, luckily, and him, being himself, a former Army Ranger, he and the customer had a great conversation around life and what things are about, and how do you find happiness? And how did he stay married for 60 years? And how he hopes he could be married that long as well. And it just became a friend more than a customer who had a bad situation. But that story sort of reflects on the reality of doing the right thing for customers through politeness, research, thoughtfulness and what is right.
He mentioned that he got that book at a customer contact week several years ago. It was the handout that they were giving away at the event. And he got to meet the author, Jeanne.
Me: So, my question is, would you say that’s a good book to give to someone who is transitioning from an employee to, let’s say, a supervisor. So, they’re transitioning into a supervisory role, and they’re going to have to be able to manage the interactions with their peers who now will become people who report to them.
John stated yes, absolutely. But it also is a book that he thinks a CEO should read in a company where maybe they’re not customer centric, they say they are, like, there are so many companies that say the customer comes first. And he sometimes, as a in his recent role and consulting on the side, he tends to say, “No, you’re not.”
And it’s not just words, it’s action. And he thinks it’s a great book for supervisors to read, especially when they’re learning from being, we in the world of customer service tend to make super-agent supervisors, and they know how, but now they have to learn how to coach how, and to be able to coach how and understand the true value and quality monitoring, effective coaching and guiding that person in the right place to make them a better agent, is pretty powerful.
So yeah, he definitely recommends it for that group, for managers, for workforce management, which those teams always get so focused on the numbers and the efficiency that sometimes.
What John is Really Excited About Now!
When asked about something that he’s excited about, John shared Agentic AI, and to not go into too many details, but how to because he can’t because of a silly NDA, but how to use AI as a powerful behind the scenes tool to make customer experience better in the environment of concierge.
So, for example, let’s say you’re at a concert, and normally you need to go to the restroom, and you want to go find the restroom. So, you walk up the aisle, you ask the usher, and they point you in the right direction and you find it and you go back, and you worry about what you missed at the concert. What song did you miss? Or did you go at intermission and have to stand in line?
Through some use in AI and implementing it about how to take an app and help that customer based on that customer’s behaviour, learn, okay, here’s where we need you to go. Here’s where your favourite drink is at this concession. Here’s the closest restroom to that drink. You can go to the restroom quickly. And we know this is the one, the right stall to find and the right place to go. And on your way back, you can grab that drink and make it back in time. And we also know with the playlist that your least favourite song is coming up. And so that’s the one you’re going to miss. So it’s not really a big deal. That’s knowing the customer and the AI in use becomes so powerful that that customer comes back and they look to their significant other or their friend that they went to that concert and says, what did I miss? Oh, you missed the song you hate. And AI helped do that because the usher at the top of the stairs doesn’t know who you are. They don’t know what you like or how fast you can walk or what your favourite drink is. And so, it becomes question and answer back and forth. But with the right app that knows customers, it can make that experience so much better in a way that’s not intrusive, but just better and like being known and making it efficient and allowing you to have the best experience at that concert.
So, he totally made up the concert. There are other things he’s working on this project, but that’s what he’s working on, it’s making him better and it’s making him realize that AI isn’t necessarily about saving money. AI can also be about making the experience better, but also driving the purchase, which is like him if he’s at a concert and he wants to grab a beer, it’s going to know what kind he likes and where it’s sold instead of him running around the outer hallway to find, ok, where is this one I’m going to enjoy? Like I want an ice-cold Red Stripe. And in order to find that, he doesn’t know where to go, he’s got to ask a million questions. Whereas if this app tells him the exact concession stand that has it, he can go there and grab it.
Me: That’s a good one. And it can help in restaurants, too. Like if you have a particular wine that you really like to drink, the AI can definitely tell you if they provide that type of wine. Sometimes you go to restaurants, and you’ll say to them, I’d like a sweet red wine, and what they bring back as sweet and red is completely different from what you’re accustomed to. And there’s no match. I don’t know if I use the right words. Should I have said something different? But what I’ve said and what they brought back, they’re not matching up.
John stated that whereas the data that’s in there, meaning how you’re interacting with your apps, how you’re interacting and purchase power and what you listen to and what you do, it knows which wines you like, and it knows which restaurants have them. So, why not align you to that restaurant where that wine is? And now you’re a customer of that restaurant and you had a great time, and you enjoyed it. You didn’t say, I didn’t really like this wine, let me try something else.
Where can listeners find John online?
LinkedIn – John McCahan
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity John Uses
When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, John stated that this is back to also another military thing which is, “Did you die? And if you didn’t, you’re alive. It’s great. You can just keep moving forward.” So, it’s about moving forward, no matter how hard things get or how miserable, how difficult the change or the situation, it is what it is and you can move forward as a person, as an individual and as a leader and help your people and teams move forward as well. Because you didn’t die.
Me: Well, thank you so much, John, for coming and taking time out of your very busy schedule and sharing all of these great insights with us and just about your journey, your different military quotes that have helped you, experiences that you’ve had in the different organizations that you’ve had an opportunity to work with, just the different strategies that we can use as leaders to enhance how we look at customer experience. It has been a very fun and informative conversation, I really enjoyed our talk, and I just want to say thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.
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Links
- Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and in Your Life by Spencer Johnson
- Would You Do That to Your Mother?: The “Make Mom Proud” Standard for How to Treat Your Customers by Jeanne Bliss
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