Customer Success Playbook Podcast S3 E41 - Shep Hyken - The Hidden ROI of Convenience

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In this value-packed episode of the Customer Success Playbook podcast, Shep Hyken returns for Part 2 of our three-part series to address the billion-dollar question: How do companies balance price sensitivity with the growing demand for exceptional customer experiences? From mentalism to magic moments, Shep draws surprising parallels between sleight-of-hand and customer loyalty while unpacking game-changing insights from his CX research.

Detailed Analysis: Kevin Metzger and Roman Trebon dive deep with customer service guru Shep Hyken, and this time it's all about one powerful word: convenience. Drawing from his acclaimed book The Convenience Revolution and the 2025 State of Customer Service and CX report, Shep lays out how brands can make price less relevant by making the customer experience more effortless. And no, that doesn't mean grand gestures—it means smart, consistent, and friction-free experiences.

Key insight? A whopping 59% of consumers are willing to pay more for a better experience, but especially for one that's more convenient. Case in point: Shep shares a brilliant Wall Street Journal case study showing how simplifying subscription forms led to a measurable increase in conversions. The takeaway? Every unnecessary field is a friction point that erodes revenue.

Shep also explores how the pandemic accelerated customer expectations for convenience—a trend that is here to stay. He uses real-life examples, including Amazon and even a local car dealership in St. Louis, to prove that making things easy builds loyalty that price alone can't buy.

And if you thought this was all business, think again. Shep opens the episode with a personal twist—his love for guitar, magic, and Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, weaving them seamlessly into his customer service philosophy.

Don't miss this episode if you're in customer success, support, or CX leadership. For more context and deeper insights, explore Shep's full CX research at https://hyken.com/research/.

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Episode Transcript

Kevin Metzger (00:05):
Customer success.
Hello and welcome back to theCustomer Success Playbook
podcast.
I'm Kevin Metzger here with myco-host Roman Tremont.
This is our Wednesday show andwe're again joined by Shep
Hyken, customer service andexperience expert.
Roman, how you doing?

(00:25):
Yep.

Roman Trebon (00:26):
Uh, Kev, I'm, I'm excited to have Shep back.
Uh, but before we tackle today'sone big question, Kev, we're,
we're gonna get to get to knowShep a little bit more.
Shep, you've, you're the authorof multiple books, right?
Do you, do you have a book, anon-business book that has
inspired any of your work orit's become a favorite of yours
outside of, uh, the businessworld?

Shep Hyken (00:46):
Yeah, great question.
I don't know if this is a goodanswer or not, but I would have
to go with, uh, and by the way,you did not prep me on this
call.
No.
So there's two books that cometo mind, the Seven Summits.
Which is, uh, about two guysthat decided to scale the
highest summit on eachcontinent.
Um, great motivational story,but I'm gonna go with the
Fountain Head by Anne Rand.

(01:08):
Uh, the reason is, is there is agentleman that was the main
central character who startedout at the very bottom of a
business.
And when I was in college, afriend of mine gave me this book
because I didn't know what I wasgonna do with my life.
I was pumping gas at a gasoline.
Actually, I wouldn't even pump agas.
It was self-service.
I wasn't allowed to pump gas.
I went outside once to pump alady's gas tank.
She was like 85 years old, andit was so cold and I helped her

(01:31):
out and my manager got mad at mefor pumping the gas at a gas
station, but I digress.
I was wanting to learn businessand this was like how to learn
from the bottom up, and he gaveme this book and I read it.
It's a big, thick book, but whatan entertaining read about this
character that.
Understood business at such adeeper level because he started
at the very bottom.

(01:52):
I just love the story and, uh,that's, that's an inspiring book
for me.

Kevin Metzger (01:57):
Uh, love it, love it, love it.
Yeah.
Um, and.
We were talking a little beforethe show, so I, I suspect I may
know the answer to this, butwhat's a pastime or hobby that
keeps you busy outside of, uh,CS CX research?

Shep Hyken (02:11):
Uh, sure.
Well, I, I have so many hobbies,but I have two favorites and one
is music.
I play guitar, and the other ismagic.
I practice my card tricks allthe time.
Both of those.
I'm never a boss.

Roman Trebon (02:23):
Oh, chef, you got a favorite.
You got a favorite card trickyou got a go-to.
If you're, uh, you, you're, youknow, you're hanging out with a,
a group of people, you, you're ago-to card trick.

Shep Hyken (02:31):
I, I like being able to have, you know, being able,
somebody think of a card, I tell'em what it is kind of thing.
I like mentalism mind reading,you know?
Yeah.
And then again, I love Leigh ofhand, so, uh, you know, you put
a deck of cards in my hand and,and I'll go for 15, 20 minutes.
No problem.

Roman Trebon (02:46):
The ultimate icebreaker, you throw a good
card trick out, like with anaudience and people just lose
it.
It's, it's, it's the best,absolute best.

Shep Hyken (02:52):
Alright, well I actually do a little bit of
magic in my speech, so.
1983, which is before some ofyou were born listening to the
show.
Probably a lot of, I did myfirst speech and I was about 23
years older or so.
You could do the math and youneed to know that since I was 10
or 11 I did card tricks and Iworked the eventually birthday
party magic shows andeventually.

(03:13):
Worked in comedy clubs leadingup to when I finally started to
become a professional speaker incustomer service and experience,
which is a whole nother story.
But when I started, I thought,I'm gonna talk about how you
create a moment of magic for thecustomer versus a moment of
misery or mediocrity, which isthat word, you know, we talked
about on Monday.
Fine, average, satisfactory, butuh, that's.

(03:35):
Kind of in the moment of magic,think I should probably do a
magic trick to illustrate thispoint.
So I do one or two tricks in aspeech every once.

Roman Trebon (03:42):
Bring it, bringing it all together.
I love it.
I love it.
Yeah.
It's

Shep Hyken (03:44):
the sugar that makes the medicine go down when I'm
giving them all thisinformation.

Roman Trebon (03:48):
That's right.
Alright, awesome.
Uh, she shep.
Well, let's get into our one bigquestion for the day.
Sure.
So how, how do you recommendcompanies balance, price,
sensitivity?
Especially in today's kind ofshaky economy against the fact
that so many customers say thatthey would pay for a better
customer experience.

Shep Hyken (04:07):
Yes, they will pay for a better customer
experience, but also recognizethe shaky economy does change
the numbers a bit.
How much more will they pay?
I believe that the right levelof service and experience makes.
Price less relevant, notirrelevant.
However, if, if you are a moreexpensive choice, what are the
reasons you're more expensive?

(04:27):
Choice.
I, I take a look at what I I inour survey that we've talked
about, 59% of people are willingto pay more if they know they're
gonna receive a better customerexperience.
But the number one customerexperience that customers want
even more than a friendlyexperience, is a convenient
experience.
If you make it easy, hasslefree.

(04:48):
And it's like, no issues.
I'm gonna pay more because it'sjust so much easier.
Then there's companies out therelike Amazon for example, that
have not only created a greatexperience, uh, but, and it's
easy and intuitive, but they'vealso given you a fairly low
price.
By the way, if they're not thelowest price, they'll say.
You can buy this item outside ofyour Amazon Prime membership at

(05:12):
a lower price if you want totake a chance.
What they're saying, no, howmuch lower can it be?
Well, it's not that much lowerenough.
I'm staying with Prime.
Why?
Because I know it's gonna bedelivered.
I'll be able to track it ifthere's easy returns, if there's
a problem, that kind of thing.
So, uh, I would say that.
Price sensitivity is commiseratenumber one with the overall

(05:32):
experience, but number two, youwanna really make price less
relevant given the easy,convenient experience.

Kevin Metzger (05:38):
Do you see ROI with that?
Do you see a return, uh, whenyou're giving the, the easy
experience pretty consistently?

Shep Hyken (05:48):
Well, in the book that I wrote titled The
Convenience Revolution, which isall about the convenient
experience, I'm gonna give you acase study that comes from the
Wall Street Journal and itdidn't, it wasn't reported to
the Wall Street Journal.
It's how they gainedsubscribers.
Now consider this, if you weregoing, uh, to go online and you
got the digital copy of the WallStreet Journal, in order to buy

(06:11):
it, you need to give themcertain information.
What the Wall Street Journal wasasking was.
Name, email address, and then awhole bunch of other questions.
Address, regular address, zipcode, age, uh, gender, et
cetera, et cetera, along withthe basic credit card
information, paymentinformation.
And what they learned was forevery field of information that

(06:31):
they would eliminate that theyreally didn't need to get that
subscription.
Meaning really all I need isname and your email address,
where to send it to, and yourcredit card information.
Over time, I'll be able to get.
Everything else.
But if we eliminate those fieldsof information from the original
ask, when we ask you to sign upand subscribe, they found that

(06:54):
they got a little bit better,uh, less cart abandonment.
It's like I think the properterminology.
In other words, ask me for less.
I'll more likely stay with youand finish the transaction.
Keep asking me for all theseunimportant stats and facts
about myself.
You know, why are you asking methis?
I'm moving on.
So the Wall Street Journal, Ithought that's a great case

(07:14):
study to recognize for everyfield of information.
Sales went up just a little bit.

Kevin Metzger (07:19):
Yeah, that's, that's interesting.
I, I, I can't tell you how manytimes going through a process of
trying to check out and startgetting questions, especially
once you go through like thelong form, you know, sales form
type things, and then they startasking you lots of questions,
uh, drives people right out ofthe, right out of the funnel.

Roman Trebon (07:39):
Shep, you've been doing this for a long time.
I, I loved your study and, andwe will tell our audience where
you can find it, but it, itseems like convenience is king.
Right?
And I know the technology haschanged and, and, and the
players have changed, but like,it, it, since you've been doing
this, has that changed a lot?
Like it seemed just make iteasy?
Are you seeing a, a change inthat or is that how it's always
been and we're just, the piecesare, are different.

Shep Hyken (08:00):
So it really made a huge change.
The convenience idea changedduring the pandemic when we had
to create a more convenientexperience because you weren't
allowed to come to our stores orwe, you know, we couldn't do the
health reasons.
So like car dealerships wouldsay, Hey, I.
You're interested in the car,we'll bring you a car and you
can test drive it.
We'll wear masks or we'll noteven get in the car with you and

(08:21):
let you drive around.
That's pretty easy.
By the way, the dealership thatI loved here in St.
Louis where I live long beforethe pandemic ever hit, said I, I
looked around, I said, uh.
I may not buy from you becauseyou're so far away from me.
And they go, what do you mean?
I go, well, you're at least 10miles away.
And the other dealership's liketwo miles away.
But I saw the car in the windowand I had to stop to look at it,

(08:44):
but I am gonna buy a car.
And they said, do you see awaiting room around here?
And I looked around and I.
I, I don't see it.
It's, it's here.
It's very small.
It's over there.
'cause nobody ever waits fortheir car because if you need
service, you call us up, webring you a loaner, we pick up
your car.
When your car's ready, we bringit back.
So you never have to come inhere unless you wanna buy

(09:05):
another car.
And even then we'll bring you acar to test drive.
Yeah.
You know, and this was like longbefore the pandemic.
Guess who got my business by theway?
They were competitive.
They were awesome.
They said, you know what, let mewrite you up a deal and.
If you want to take it and thinkabout it for a few days, great.
Go to the other dealership.
If they give you$1 less, pleaselet us know.

(09:26):
We want your business.
So they were being, and by theway, I'm not going to bug'em for
a dollar.
If they were a huge amount, itmight have made a difference.
But they got my business, theygot, you know, everything.
And, and we've bought three carsfrom them since then.
Yeah.

Kevin Metzger (09:41):
Yeah.

Shep Hyken (09:41):
I love it.

Roman Trebon (09:42):
Chef.
This is awesome stuff.
You're gonna come back, join usFriday.
Friday is we always do AIFriday.
AI Friday.
AI Friday.
What's the,

Shep Hyken (09:51):
what's the literation on that?
AI Friday

Roman Trebon (09:54):
ai.
Friday Artificial intelligence.
Friday.
We say Friday.
Yay.
We tried to do a couplevariations.
I get

Shep Hyken (10:00):
Taco Tuesday.
We can

Roman Trebon (10:02):
talk us through that.
We gotta figure out a, a Fridaything here, Kev.
We're still, we're strugglingwith that.
Still working with it.
We'll talk AI on Friday withShep, and we're gonna talk about
how AI is both transforming andchallenging customer support and
experience.
We'll dig into Shep's report andsee what it says to our
audience.
Thanks always for listening.
We really appreciate.
Make sure you subscribe like theshow.

(10:22):
You'll get notified when ourFriday episode gets released.
And until next time, Kevin, keepon playing.