Ep. 228: Tony Ezell | Sustaining Success: How Customer Loyalty Drives Organizational Stability

Customer Confidential: Untold Stories of Earned Growth

How does a global medical technology company maintain customer focus while managing operational challenges during a pandemic?

In this episode, Tony Ezell, executive vice president of North America and chief marketing officer for Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD), explores how integrating customer feedback into your business strategy can maintain—and even enhance—customer loyalty by helping shape business strategies that are both robust and responsive to evolving customer needs.

Tony outlines how customer loyalty and adaptability are essential strategic tools in healthcare innovation. Together, we explore how BD leveraged a customer-centric approach to skillfully navigate operational continuity and customer satisfaction.

We also take a short trip down memory lane to connect the dots from our chat with Tony a decade ago, exploring the ongoing impact of customer experience and Net Promoter Systems on Tony's evolving career trajectory and leadership style.

Guest: Tony Ezell, executive vice president of North America and chief marketing officer, Becton, Dickinson and Company

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Episode Highlights

• Introduction and Tony Ezell's background [01:59]
• The balance of operational responsibilities and customer-centricity [04:53]
• Covid-19’s impact on customer loyalty at BD [05:50]
• Implementing customer feedback into business strategy [09:09]
• BD’s challenges and opportunities [12:09]
• Tony’s NPS work [15:07]
• Customer feedback scores [20:07]
• Partnerships [21:30]
• Connecting the dots between 2014 and today [26:22]
• Driving loyalty [27:46]

Quotable Quotes:

• "We have customers who were starting to decide whether they want to go away from us, who are now calling us to engage, to help them solve their problems again.” [01:19]
• “I always think about what drives loyalty, and do we know what drives loyalty? And are we actually delivering on the things that matter most to our customers, that drive loyalty? And that’s what we’re operating on now.” [04:33]
• “Our customers see us as one company, not as seven or nine different businesses. And now that we’ve done that, we’re starting to make improvements.” [12:38]

Additional Resources:

• Hear Tony’s 2014 podcast with Rob Markey: “Breaking Down the ‘Invisible Fence’”

Host: Rob Markey