Shaun has spent the past ten years helping organisations from Brazil to Singapore to create a compelling customer experience that achieves brand differentiation and long-term customer loyalty.
Shaun’s reputation as an expert in the creation and application of customer experience improvement strategies led to him co-authoring three critically-acclaimed books that help define this relatively new business discipline. His first book ‘Uncommon Practice’, researched and written in partnership with Interbrand, examines those companies that create exceptional customer experiences. His second book ‘Managing the Customer Experience’, reveals how leaders can build this kind of competitive advantage for their own organisations. Shaun’s latest book ‘See, Feel, Think, Do — the power of instinct in business’, co-authored with Andy Milligan, explores how highly successful business leaders and entrepreneurs use the power of instinct to keep themselves in tune with the customer experience and achieve outstanding business results.
Shaun is also contributing author to The Economist’s ‘Brands and Branding’ and the creator of two critical diagnostic tools that have been used by some of the world’s largest organisations: the Customer Experience Management+™ survey (CEM+™), and the Organisational Alignment Survey (OAS™) — diagnostic tools that, respectively, enable organisations to evaluate and improve their customer experience and align their people with company values and strategy.
Shaun began his career in the airline industry, where he became Head of Customer Service, Sales and Marketing Training worldwide for British Airways. He later moved to Hong Kong to head up Cathay Performa Consulting, where he specialised in airline customer service strategy, before starting his own company providing customer service consultancy to international organisations in Asia. He returned to the UK in the late 1990s as Senior Vice President of The Customer Experience Business, a specialist consulting division of Forum Corporation, a leading provider of workplace learning.
Over the last 25 years, he has built up a wealth of practical experience with organisations throughout Europe, Asia Pacific and the US, working with senior executive teams on key issues such as brand strategy and implementation, leadership, customer experience and organisational alignment. Shaun has helped both business-to-business and business-to-consumer organisations improve their performance in sectors including: retail, telecoms, travel, leisure, professional and financial services, technology, automotive, manufacturing and the public sector.
Shaun has featured a number of times on the ‘Ask the Expert’ programme on CNBC and is a sought after international speaker on key business issues such as brand leadership and differentiation; the alignment of Marketing, Customer Service and HR to create customer-focused change; motivating and training employees to deliver the brand.
Shaun’s own customer experience practice, smith+co, has become a global player in defining and implementing customer experience strategy. The firm’s approach is firmly rooted in the ‘keep it simple’ ethos, steering away from proprietorial paradigms, complex methodologies or seven magic bullets; instead the approach is refreshingly straightforward, always pragmatic and, when convention needs to be challenged, sometimes controversial.