Joey Coleman Goes From Grammy Nominated Singer to Customer Experience Expert

There was a moment when Joey Coleman was on tour with the University of Notre Dame Glee Club where the importance of customer experience became crystal clear. His choir was on the start of a European tour, Coleman was first tenor, and the group’s first gig was booked in a huge, magical cathedral in Rome, Italy. Everything was great except for the audience—there were only seven people who came to the performance.

At this moment, the choir could have gone through the motions, treated it as a “practice” concert, and moved on to the next city. Instead, a senior member of the group gathered the singers around for a quick pre-performance talk. He said even though there were only seven people in the audience, these people would never get a chance to see the University of Notre Dame Glee Club perform again. This would be the only impression the choir would make and what did they want these people to tell others about the Notre Dame Glee Club?

The choir went on stage and performed a standing-ovation worthy performance.

Concentrate on the human experience.

Ever since that moment, Joey Coleman has been learning about the importance of human experience as part of the customer journey. As a criminal defense lawyer working in Iowa, Coleman knew the human experience was important. How people felt could mean the difference between his client going home free or spending a life behind bars.

Though the law presumes the innocence of an accused, most jurors come to court thinking a person on trial must be guilty of something. Coleman learned how to help the jury think differently about his client, to feel differently about his client, and to act differently towards his client. He treated the jury as his customers, giving them a personal experience. He did everything from designing exhibits to building dioramas of crime scenes to standing in front of juries using his persuasive skills.

Since his days as a trial lawyer, Coleman has continued to learn about the human experience in vastly different fields. He learned how to please audiences as a member of the Grammy-nominated Washington Men’s Camerata choir. As a legal advisor in the White House during the Clinton administration, he helped shape people’s view of what the Office of the President should represent. Then he moved on to help companies create brand identities to connect with their consumers as Chief Experience Composer for his company Design Symphony.

Never lose a customer again.

Now Coleman has distilled his years of experience into a must-read book and keynote experience called Never Lose a Customer Again.

Coleman’s Wall Street Journal bestselling book covers the 8 phases of the customer journey from the first interaction to making them a loyal fan. In his keynote experiences and book, Coleman covers each step of what a company can do to improve the customer experience, showing companies how to connect to customers on a personal level.

Getting personal has helped companies dramatically reduced churn and attrition rates among customers. The typical business Coleman works with sees an increase in profits of 25-100% and an increase in customer referrals of more than 30%

The biggest unintended effect from focusing on customer experience has been improved employee morale and engagement. Now that employees are spending time engaging with customers on a personal level, employees have been reconnected with the reason they go to work: their customer.

If you’re interested in reconnecting with your customer base and improving the customer journey, contact BigSpeak Speakers Bureau today to learn more about Joey Coleman or to book his keynote experience.


Kyle Crocco is the Content Marketing Coordinator at BigSpeak Speakers Bureau, a graduate of UC Santa Barbara, and the lead singer of Duh Professors. He regularly publishes business book reviews and thought articles on MediumBusiness 2 Community, and Born 2 Invest.