Dan Gingiss

Corporate career at McDonald's, Discover and Humana

Dan Gingiss is an international keynote speaker and customer experience expert^[1]. His speaking draws on a 20-year professional career that included leadership positions at McDonald's, Discover and Humana^[1]. His publisher, Morgan James, describes that career as spanning customer experience, marketing, social media and customer service, and calls the three employers Fortune 300 companies^[2].

In a 2018 CustomerThink interview, Gingiss described his social media leadership roles at the three companies^[3]. He said Discover's history of competing on customer service made it an easy decision to extend that approach to social media, and that social media let the company show its service rather than only talk about it^[3]. At Humana, he said, health care privacy rules such as HIPAA made it hard to do more than move members to a private channel^[3]. At the time of that interview he was Vice President of the Strategic Group at Persado, a marketing AI company^[3].

Winning at Social Customer Care

Gingiss's first book, Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences on Social Media, was published through CreateSpace and reviewed by Publishers Weekly in May 2017^[4]. The review described it as an entry-level guide covering brand voice, availability to customers, integration of social media with the core business, responses to customers, employee training, trolls, and platform and budget choices^[4]. It also noted his formula that expectations plus emotions equal willingness to share^[4]. The contact center organization ICMI chose the book as its August 2017 book club selection and held a live Twitter chat with Gingiss^[5].

The Experience Maker and the WISER method

Morgan James Publishing released The Experience Maker: How to Create Remarkable Experiences That Your Customers Can't Wait To Share on 14 September 2021^[2]. The publisher described it as a guide for managers and executives on creating customer experiences that customers talk about^[2]. The book is built around the WISER method, which stands for Witty, Immersive, Shareable, Extraordinary and Responsive^[2]. Its argument, as the publisher summarized it, is that experiences customers share can bring publicity and higher sales with little advertising^[2].

Gingiss is the author of three books^[1]. According to his NSA profile, Book Authority ranked The Experience Maker among the top customer experience books of all time, and a second edition was published as Becoming The Experience Maker^[1]. The 2021 publisher announcement described him as chief experience officer of The Experience Maker, LLC^[2].

Podcasts

Gingiss co-hosted the weekly podcast Experience This! with customer retention expert Joey Coleman^[6]. Apple Podcasts lists the show as active from 2017 to 2023, with 185 episodes^[6]. Its episodes covered customer and employee experience examples, and a February 2023 episode tested how ChatGPT handled customer experience questions^[6]. Before that, Publishers Weekly identified him as a host of the Focus on Customer Service podcast^[4].

Speaking and education

Gingiss holds the National Speakers Association's Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation, which the NSA says fewer than 700 speakers worldwide have achieved^[1]. His NSA profile lists his speaking topics as business, customer service, inspiration and motivation, and leadership^[1]. In the 2018 CustomerThink interview he said that nearly 15 years in corporate roles let him draw on real examples in his talks^[3]. He earned a BA in psychology and communications from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA in marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University^[1].

Known for

• The Experience Maker and its WISER method
• Winning at Social Customer Care (2017)
• Co-hosting the Experience This! podcast
• Leading social media and digital customer experience at Discover, McDonald's and Humana

Sources

1. National Speakers Association: CSP directory, Dan Gingiss — checked 6 Nov 2026
2. Morgan James Publishing: release announcement for The Experience Maker, September 2021 — checked 6 Nov 2026
3. CustomerThink: Leadership Series: Dan Gingiss, August 2018 — checked 6 Nov 2026
4. Publishers Weekly: review of Winning at Social Customer Care, May 2017 — checked 6 Nov 2026
5. ICMI: Are You Ready to Win at Social Customer Care?, 2017 — checked 6 Nov 2026
6. Apple Podcasts: Experience This! (Joey Coleman and Dan Gingiss) — checked 6 Nov 2026