Customer service in the digital era

When you work with Tema Frank, you can expect that:
1. She will do background research to make sure her presentation is ideally tailored to your needs.
2. She will show up ahead of time, so you don't need to worry about where she is.
3. She will make your audience think, learn, laugh, and feel inspired to improve.
4. She will be flexible and adapt to your reality. She knows things don't always go as planned.
5. She will attend a few sessions before her talk to get a feel for the event.
6. She will stay as long as needed to answer everybody's questions.

Let’s get your first question out of the way: the name Tema rhymes with Emma. It was my grandmother’s name. She was from Minsk or Pinsk in Belalrus.

Now to the bio…

Best-selling author, international speaker, teacher and customer experience strategy consultant, Tema Frank has over three decades’ experience in marketing strategy (especially digital marketing), usability testing, and customer experience / customer service improvement.

Her recent book, PeopleShock: The Path to Profits When Customers Rule, was a finalist for the 2016 Best Book Awards and quickly hit Amazon bestseller status. Based on four years of research and in-depth interviews with 150 business leaders and thinkers, it has been praised by the likes of Patrick Doyle, CEO of Dominos Pizza, and authors Shep Hyken and Jay Baer.

She is also author of the best-selling 1994 book, Canada’s Best Employers for Women: A guide for job-hunters, employees and employers.

A digital marketing pioneer, Tema started using the Internet for e-mail in 1991 and put up her first website in 1995. She’s been immersed in the web world and its potential to make lives better for businesses and customers ever since.

Her research and thoughts have been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Huffington Post, the Globe & Mail, as well as academic publications, books, newsletters, blogs and many podcasts.

In 2001 she launched Web Mystery Shoppers Inc., the world’s first company to do omnichannel customer experience testing. Using social media techniques before “social media” existed, she recruited a panel of 75,000 mystery shoppers worldwide.

Groups of 30 – 300 people demographically matched to the clients’ target market did remote usability testing of websites & web-related customer experience. Testers worked from their own computers, giving in-depth page by page feedback on the user experience on the site. They also tested all other customer service channels, such as live chat, telephone, social media, and in-store.

Podcaster – Frank Reactions Podcast on Customer Experience

Tema started podcasting in 2012, and is the host of the highly-regarded Frank Reactions Podcast On Customer Experience. She loves having the chance to interview people who are at the leading edge of blending technology and personal customer service. Guests have included people such as:

Guy Kawasaki
Shep Hyken
Jay Baer
Jill Konrath
David Burkus
Joseph Michelli
Jeanne Bliss
Kerry Bodine

FUN
Tema loves to travel, and has lived in several Canadian cities, as well as in the Netherlands, France, Mexico, Sweden and Switzerland. Her speaking has taken her as far afield as Cape Town, South Africa. In 2018-19 she is speaking and teaching internationally in Peru, Argentina, Australia, and the UK.

She is fluent in French and English. By the end of the next round of travelling she hopes her Spanish will be reasonably fluent. (And she speaks a tiny bit of Dutch and can say thank you and you’re welcome in Swedish.)

She also volunteers on many non-profit boards, both professional and cultural (including 3 modern dance companies). Recent non-profit roles have included:
- President, Board of Directors, of LitFest, Canada’s Original Nonfiction Festival
- Senator, University of Alberta
- Board member, Business Link Alberta