Punk CX with Adrian Swinscoe
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487 episodes
Today’s interview is with Jamie Smith, who is the Founder and CEO of Customer Futures Ltd, an advisory firm helping businesses seize the opportunity around disruptive and customer-empowering digital propositions, and author of the weekly Customer Futures Newsletter https://www.customerfutures.com/. Jamie joins me today to talk about CustomerTech tools, EmpowermentTech, the emerging Customer Stack, what this all means, the implications of all this for personalisation and privacy and what customer engagement in the near future could look like. This interview follows on from my recent interview – A look inside a punk-inspired contact center – Interview with David Powers https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2024/03/a-look-inside-a-punk-inspired-contact-center-interview-with-david-powers/ – and is number 497 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with David Powers, who is an author https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blue-Collar-Call-Center-Conversational/dp/B0BF2HCKHS/, podcast host https://linktr.ee/caffcx, Chief Experience Officer at Rooter Hero Plumbing & Air https://rooterhero.com/ and a true punk. David joins me today to talk about the need for taking a more punk approach to customer experience and the contact center, what that means in practical terms, some of the big changes he’s seen in the contact center space over the last 23 years as well as some of the biggest challenges coming down the pipe and, finally, what it means to create a tribe and/or a scene in your contact center. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The CX value model and linking experience to business outcomes – Interview with Michael Hinshaw of McorpCX https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2024/02/the-cx-value-model-and-linking-experience-to-business-outcomes-interview-with-michael-hinshaw-of-mcorpcx/ – and is number 496 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Michael Hinshaw, the founder and president of customer experience consultancy McorpCX https://www.mcorpcx.com/. Michael joins me today to talk about the CX value model and why we should be linking experience to business outcomes, some key indicators of a successful customer-centric transformation, why your company might need an experience operating system (the XOS), what it is and what are the benefits. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Leadership lessons from the winner of the 2023 CX Leader of the Year – Interview with Roxie Strohmenger of UKG https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2024/02/leadership-lessons-from-the-winner-of-the-2023-cx-leader-of-the-year-interview-with-roxie-strohmenger-of-ukg/ – and is number 495 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with the winner of the MyCustomer https://www.mycustomer.com/ 2023 CX Leader of the Year competition: Roxie Strohmenger, GSO - VP, CX Strategy at UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group) https://www.ukg.com/. This interview is slightly different this week as I conduct it with Clare Muscutt https://www.linkedin.com/in/clare-muscutt/, Founder and CEO of Women in CX https://womenincx.community/ but follows the same format to the one last year where we interviewed Maneesha Bhusal of JD .ID, the winner of the 2022 CX Leader of the Year https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/01/leadership-lessons-from-the-winner-of-the-2022-cx-leader-of-the-year-interview-with-maneesha-bhusal-of-jd-id/. In the interview, we discuss Roxie’s journey to where she is now, why she applied for the CX Leader of the Year competition https://www.cxleaderoftheyear.com/, how she felt when she won and the biggest lessons that she has learned along the way. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The frontline is where you connect EX and CX together in a very natural way – Interview with Joe Tyrrell of Medallia https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2024/02/the-frontline-is-where-you-connect-ex-and-cx-together-in-a-very-natural-way-interview-with-joe-tyrell-of-medallia/ – and is number 494 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Joe Tyrrell, CEO of Medallia https://www.medallia.com/. Joe joins me today to talk about why brands must consider EX in their journey to CX success, his view on the impact Generative AI is having on the world of experience and where he thinks it is heading, personalization and the big challenges that organizations need to tackle in order to fully realise the potential that lies in front of them. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Forget the hype. Here’s what enterprises are actually doing with generative AI – Interview with Stefano Puntoni and Jeremy Korst https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2024/02/forget-the-hype-heres-what-enterprises-are-actually-doing-with-generative-ai-interview-with-stefano-puntoni-and-jeremy-korst/ – and is number 493 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Stefano Puntoni, Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School https://www.wharton.upenn.edu/ and Director of AI at Wharton, and Jeremy Korst, President at GBK Collective https://www.gbkcollective.com/. Stefano and Jeremy join me today to talk about a new report called The Rise of Generative AI in the Enterprise https://www.gbkcollective.com/thoughtleadership/generative-ai-study that they collaborated on and recently released, some of the biggest emerging applications and use cases for gen AI in the enterprise space coming out of the report, what reservations leaders have about the technology, the impact that gen AI will have on the demand for talent, what functional areas are lagging behind and what sort of safeguards brands should be putting in place to safely realize the potential of AI with customers. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The raw and honest truth about what agents think about their jobs – Interview with Juanita Coley https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2024/01/the-raw-and-honest-truth-about-what-agents-think-about-their-jobs-interview-with-juanita-coley/ – and is number 492 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Juanita Coley, who is best known as the “Contact Center Whisperer” and is also the CEO and Founder of Solid Rock Consulting https://solidrockco.net/, a workforce management consulting firm. Juanita joins me today to talk about the inside track on what customer service agents like or don’t like about their jobs, the implications of those findings, what contact center leaders should be focusing on/doing to help improve their employees’ (agents) experience and why we should be talking about and leaning into the voice of the agent (VoA) amongst a bunch of other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The challenge with conversational analysis in the Nordics – Interview with Tue Martin Berg of Capturi https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2024/01/the-challenge-with-conversational-analysis-in-the-nordics-interview-with-tue-martin-berg-of-capturi/ – and is number 491 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Tue Martin Berg, the CEO and part of the founding team at Capturi https://en.capturi.com/, Scandinavia's leading software provider for conversation analysis. Tue joins me today to talk about what they are up to, why some Scandinavian organisations who after implementing call/interaction analytics solutions from one of the big US providers, then ripped it out, whether the problem they faced applies to all brands that operate in languages other than English, the impact that has on their ability to offer automated conversational features as part of their services and what many Scandinavian organisations are now doing and achieving with the help of Capturi. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Are you doing change to people or with people? – Interview with Phil Lewis and Claire Croft of Corporate Punk https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2024/01/are-you-doing-change-to-people-or-with-people-interview-with-phil-lewis-and-claire-croft-of-corporate-punk/ – and is number 490 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Phil Lewis and Claire Croft of Corporate Punk https://corporatepunk.com/, an award-winning management consultancy that helps clients innovate and transform their business culture. Phil and Claire join me today to talk about how many change/transformation initiatives suffer because they try to do change to and not with their people, how doing change with and not to people is grounded in both data and dialogue and a framework to help an organisation/department/team determine how change-ready they are. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Customers don’t want minimally viable anything. They just want quality – Interview with Debbie Levitt https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/12/customers-dont-want-minimally-viable-anything-they-just-want-quality-interview-with-debbie-levitt/ – and is number 489 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Debbie Levitt, who is the CXO of Delta CX https://deltacx.com/ and the author of Customers Know You Suck https://deltacx.media/media/customers-know-you-suck/. Debbie joins me today to talk about how we are in danger of over-indexing on failure and celebrating failure rather than trying to emulate what makes successful companies successful, how that is manifesting itself, why we talk about Apple and Amazon a lot but often don’t really emulate them, the relationship between failure, speed and quality and what customers actually care about. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Personalization is pervasive but it’s not personal – Interview with Shafqat Islam https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/12/personalization-is-pervasive-but-its-not-personal-interview-with-shafqat-islam/ – and is number 488 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with John Devlin, CEO and co-founder of Ascensos https://www.ascensos.com/, a leading customer management and contact centre solution provider that offers bespoke and innovative solutions for various industries, such as consumer retail, healthcare and insurance. John joins me today to talk about the evolution of the customer service outsourcing space over the last 25+ years, what their Chief Happyologist does, the role and impact of Gen AI in the outsourcing business, how it will affect the business going forward and what Ascensos Local is all about. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Your customer doesn’t want to know about your technology – Interview with Micah Solomon https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/11/your-customer-doesnt-want-to-know-about-your-technology-interview-with-micah-solomon/ – and is number 486 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Micah Solomon https://micahsolomon.com/, a renowned expert on customer service, hospitality, and customer experience. Micah joins me today to talk about his new book: Can Your Customer Service Do This?: Create an Anticipatory Customer Experience that Builds Loyalty Forever https://www.amazon.co.uk/Can-Your-Customer-Service-This/dp/126482551X/, why he spends a lot of time wearing a disguise and using a fake name, what Gold Touch Customer Service is, why we should keep technology in customer service/experience “Below Eye Level” and how to innovate in customer service amongst a host of other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – How to safely realise the enormous potential of Al – Interview with Juliette Powell and Art Kleiner https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/11/how-to-safely-realise-the-enormous-potential-of-al-interview-with-juliette-powell-and-art-kleiner/ – and is number 485 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Juliette Powell and Art Kleiner http://kleinerpowell.com/. Juliette is an author, entrepreneur, technologist, and strategist, who works at the intersection of culture, data science, and ethics and Art is a writer, editor, consultant/facilitator and entrepreneur with a background in technology, business culture, scenario thinking and organizational learning. They are both faculty members at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications and Interactive Media Arts program and have recently co-authored a new book called https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUZ0K530yLjyAHOVxV4rR61UY1lW6LwGdAYoW-2FTJ9oLVr2b7j9nvR3T4oLF7oW2iCySYwG-2F-2BjCyD-2FUwsg-2BAowxF3Ut-2BzPo7mDyOfWLp3sNZySJs-4_I8B0La722FaheTZHi47R69iNGkn-2BNw5otowX2RmQ4xqqoqxF5EtUUa9Wh-2BsuO3P5oe0i6w18vcOwyvDJ99DxroWOnElMfttFmFYvt5vL2kB0Kyai9clg78YKuNwtbUpKz8bZp3dRhClMAXelTW9Wz3KDJUIIAfR1y3uvUL8PkgnOtdJEAkZeGqMtGKNoVvldvPQAe4eNhkTi66oOU9maZIEnMlCg6mBcriMr366Cwi-2B0XMB8AdTKXDgBOlOjtEYqmJZYAr8UvPABcv5g-2Byj8ThusNgZ5kK8CjupJ2ZgnWJ7mOC8-2Bk7ltaPbBLL2g5mdVxxfqLjR1hYKX3dFaASdKmQwYyHmxKK8RsI72HZHiqnk-3D. Juliette and Art join me on the podcast to talk about the book, the four challenges we face to regain control of our personal data, the five steps businesses can take to build AI accountability, the regulation of AI, the three things teams need to consider in developing or using systems that generate texts, images, or other content amongst a whole bunch of other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The science behind repairing trust – Interview with Professor Peter Kim https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/10/the-science-behind-repairing-trust-interview-with-professor-peter-kim/ – and is number 484 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Dr. Peter Kim, Professor of Management and Organization at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business https://www.marshall.usc.edu/ and author of a newly published book called How Trust Works: The Science of How Relationships Are Built, Broken, and Repaired https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Trust-Works-Relationships-Repaired/dp/1250838150/. Peter joins me today on the podcast to talk about his new book, the different elements of trust, how we think trust operates and how most of us choose to trust in real life, why we're more likely to forgive what we perceive as a blunder in competence than a lapse in integrity and what we should do when trust is broken. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The five barriers to digital transformation and a roadmap to overcome them – Interview with David Rogers https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/10/the-five-barriers-to-digital-transformation-and-a-roadmap-to-overcome-them-interview-with-david-rogers/ – and is number 483 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with David Rogers, who is the world’s leading expert on digital transformation, a member of the faculty at Columbia Business School https://business.columbia.edu/, and the author of five books. He joins me today to talk about his new book, "The Digital Transformation Roadmap https://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Transformation-Roadmap-Organization-Continuous/dp/023119658X/”, the reasons behind why 70 percent or more of digital transformations fall short of their objectives or fail to achieve any sustained benefit, the biggest single factor for digital transformation success, Amazon’s press release/frequently asked questions (PR/FAQ) tool and lots of other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Brands don’t need more feedback or survey data to better understand their customers – Interview with Nate Sanders of Artifact https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/10/brands-dont-need-more-feedback-or-survey-data-to-better-understand-their-customers-interview-with-nate-sanders-of-artifact/ – and is number 482 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at CGS https://www.cgsinc.com/en for sponsoring my podcast this month. Now, CGS is a company you might not have heard of. But, they have been delivering brand-building and customer experiences for 40 years for global brands that you will definitely have heard of. Over that time, they have developed deep expertise in both outsourcing and technology, so you should definitely pay attention to what they have to say. They’ve recently put together a free ebook and video that I’d like to point you to. It’s called The Transformative Power of Generative AI and ChatGPT https://act.cgsinc.com/BPO-2023-Podcast-PunkCX_LandingPage.html and has been authored by CGS’ Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, John Samuel. It’s a really comprehensive guide and is designed to deliver insights, summarize research, and inspire creative problem-solving. Follow this link https://act.cgsinc.com/BPO-2023-Podcast-PunkCX_LandingPage.html to check out the free ebook and video.
Today’s interview is with Nate Sanders, the co-founder and CEO of Artifact https://www.artifact.io/, the customer experience forecasting company. Nate joins me today to talk about the recent guest post that he wrote for my site called “Obituary: The Survey (1920s – 2023) https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/06/obituary-the-survey-1920s-2023/” [It caused a bit of stir on LinkedIn], where we are at re surveys, VoC, data and insight, why companies don’t necessarily need more insight or customer feedback data and what they should be doing instead. This interview follows on from my recent interview – When we talk about attention, we’re actually talking about engagement – Interview with Walter Flaat of dentsu Canada https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/10/when-we-talk-about-attention-were-actually-talking-about-engagement-interview-with-walter-flaat-of-dentsu-canada/ – and is number 481 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at CGS https://www.cgsinc.com/en for sponsoring my podcast for the coming month. Now, CGS is a company you might not have heard of. But, they have been delivering brand-building and customer experiences for 40 years for global brands that you will definitely have heard of. Over that time, they have developed deep expertise in both outsourcing and technology, so you should definitely pay attention to what they have to say. They’ve recently put together a free ebook and video that I’d like to point you to. It’s called The Transformative Power of Generative AI and ChatGPT https://act.cgsinc.com/BPO-2023-Podcast-PunkCX_LandingPage.html and has been authored by CGS’ Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, John Samuel. It’s a really comprehensive guide and is designed to deliver insights, summarize research, and inspire creative problem-solving. Follow this link https://act.cgsinc.com/BPO-2023-Podcast-PunkCX_LandingPage.html to check out the free ebook and video.
Today’s interview is with Walter Flaat, dentsu Canada https://www.dentsu.com/’s Chief Data Officer. We talk about a new whitepaper https://www.dentsu.com/ca/en/reports/attention_economy_report that they’ve just published on the Attention Economy, what drives attention (engagement), what brands should be doing in order to be able to deliver a more thoughtful, empathetic and inclusive experience and what are the implications for experience and digital professionals and leaders. This interview follows on from my recent interview – CX in the age of AI: A leading outsourcer’s perspective – Interview with Cathy Jooste and John Samuel of CGS https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/09/cx-ai-outsourcing-the-future-interview-with-cathy-jooste-and-john-samuel-of-cgs/ – and is number 480 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at CGS https://www.cgsinc.com/en for sponsoring my podcast for the coming month. Now, CGS is a company you might not have heard of. But, they have been delivering brand-building and customer experiences for 40 years for global brands that you will definitely have heard of. Over that time, they have developed deep expertise in both outsourcing and technology, so you should definitely pay attention to what they have to say. They’ve recently put together a free ebook and video that I’d like to point you to. It’s called The Transformative Power of Generative AI and ChatGPT https://act.cgsinc.com/BPO-2023-Podcast-PunkCX_LandingPage.html and has been authored by CGS’ Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, John Samuel (one of our interviewees today). It’s a really comprehensive guide and is designed to deliver insights, summarize research, and inspire creative problem-solving. Follow this link https://act.cgsinc.com/BPO-2023-Podcast-PunkCX_LandingPage.html to check out the free ebook and video.
Today’s interview is with Cathrine (Cathy) Jooste, President of the Business Process Outsourcing Division https://www.cgsinc.com/en/business-process-outsourcing?utm_source=PunkCX&utm_medium=sponsored-content&utm_campaign=PunkCX-Podcast&utm_content=BPO-high, and John Samuel, EVP and CTO, at CGS https://www.cgsinc.com/en, a global provider of applications, enterprise learning, customer experience and outsourcing services. Cathy and John join me today to talk about how the BPO/outsourcing business has changed over the last 40 years, the current challenges that the space is facing, how things are evolving, what are the tech and talent implications of these developments and if we are moving to a fully automated customer service future. Finally, they offer a perspective on what they think the future of CX outsourcing might look like. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The delusion amongst customer service and experience VPs – Interview with Micah Peterson of ProcedureFlow https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/09/interview-with-micah-peterson-of-procedureflow/ – and is number 479 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at CGS https://www.cgsinc.com/en for sponsoring my podcast for the coming month. Now, CGS is a company you might not have heard of. But, they have been delivering brand-building and customer experiences for 40 years for global brands that you will definitely have heard of. Over that time, they have developed deep expertise in both outsourcing and technology, so you should definitely pay attention to what they have to say. They’ve recently put together a free ebook and video that I’d like to point you to. It’s called The Transformative Power of Generative AI and ChatGPT https://act.cgsinc.com/BPO-2023-Podcast-PunkCX_LandingPage.html and has been authored by CGS’ Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, John Samuel (one of our interviewees today). It’s a really comprehensive guide and is designed to deliver insights, summarize research, and inspire creative problem-solving. Follow this link https://act.cgsinc.com/BPO-2023-Podcast-PunkCX_LandingPage.html to check out the free ebook and video.
Today’s interview is with Micah Peterson, a member of the founding team and the VP of Product Management at ProcedureFlow https://procedureflow.com/, the next-generation knowledge management software that is designed to help companies visualize and navigate processes. We talk about two delusions that exist in the service space, particularly at the VP level, why followed procedures reduce AHT, how customer service can often be the dumpster fire of the company, and how text-based knowledge bases tend only to have a 3-year lifecycle unless they are properly cleaned and managed before they become completely dysfunctional. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The autonomous enterprise is like a North Star vision of where business is going – Interview with Kerim Akgonul and Peter van der Putten of Pega https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/08/the-autonomous-enterprise-is-like-a-north-star-vision-of-where-business-is-going-interview-with-kerim-akgonul-and-peter-van-der-putten-of-pega/ – and is number 478 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is like an interview I released a couple of weeks ago and features two, separate interviews that I conducted on a recent trip to Pegaworld iNspire https://www.pega.com/events/pegaworld held in Las Vegas. The first interview is with Kerim Akgonul, the Chief Product Officer at Pega https://www.pega.com/. This is swiftly followed by a chat with Dr Peter Van Der Putten, who is assistant professor of AI at Leiden University in The Netherlands and Director of the AI Lab at Pega. I talk to them both about their highlights from the event and what’s top of mind for them in the service and experience space right now. Unsurprisingly, we cover the automated enterprise, demos featuring western omelettes, process mining, how to get the most value out of AI and, of course, how gen AI will impact all of this. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Revisiting the Big Ass Fans story and what happened next – Interview with Carey Smith of Unorthodox Ventures https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/08/revisiting-the-big-ass-fans-story-and-what-happened-next-interview-with-carey-smith-of-unorthodox-ventures/ – and is number 477 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Carey Smith, who is Founding Contrarian at Unorthodox Ventures http://unorthodoxventures.com/. Carey is a returning guest and was first on the podcast back in October 2014 https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2014/10/find-and-fix-customer-problems-by-hiring-a-customer-advocacy-manager-interview-with-carey-smith-and-dave-waltz-of-big-ass-fans/, where along with his colleague Dave Waltz, they shared with me the story of how their customer service strategy was central to growing the Big Ass Fans business five-fold over a five year period. That was nine years ago! Nine years! So, I thought it would be great to invite Carey back onto the podcast to find out what happened next. This interview follows on from my recent interview – New shoes, a surprising but delightful musical collaboration, the autonomous enterprise, gen AI and getting personalisation right – Interview with James Dodkins and Tara DeZao of Pega https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/08/new-shoes-a-surprising-but-delightful-musical-collaboration-the-autonomous-enterprise-gen-ai-and-getting-personalisation-right-interview-with-james-dodkins-and-tara-dezao-of-pega/ – and is number 476 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is a bit different as it features two, separate interviews in one episode. It's a two-fer! These interviews were conducted on a recent trip to Pegaworld iNspire https://www.pega.com/events/pegaworld held in Las Vegas. The first interview is with James Dodkins, who is the CX Evangelist at Pega https://www.pega.com/. This is swiftly followed by a chat with Tara DeZao, Director of Product Marketing, AdTech and MarTech at Pega. I talk to them both about their highlights from the event and what’s top of mind for them in the service and experience space right now. Unsurprisingly, we cover the autonomous enterprise, generative AI, new shoes, bad rock tracks, a surprise but great musical collaboration, first-party data, getting your ‘data’ house in order, getting personalisation right and, of course, how gen AI will impact all of this. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Taking an employee-centric approach has allowed us to achieve an attrition rate of 5% – Interview with Jose Herrera of Horatio CX https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/08/taking-an-employee-centric-approach-has-allowed-us-to-achieve-an-attrition-rate-of-5-interview-with-jose-herrera-of-horatio-cx/ – and is number 475 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Jose Herrera, CEO and Co-Founder of Horatio CX https://hirehoratio.com/, a next generation CX outsourcing firm and the trusted partner of some of the leading and fastest growing ecommerce companies. Jose joins me today to talk about maintaining a human connection when everyone else seems to be talking about how customer service needs to be led by robots, taking an employee-centric approach, achieving an industry-leading attrition rate of only 5% and building a truly inclusive culture. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Our transformation journey and unleashing the power of AI and automation – Interview with Shelia Anderson of Aflac https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/07/our-transformation-journey-and-unleashing-the-power-of-ai-and-automation-interview-with-shelia-anderson-of-aflac/ – and is number 474 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Shelia Anderson, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Aflac https://www.aflac.com/, a Fortune 500 company that provides insurance and financial protection to millions of policyholders and customers through its subsidiaries in the U.S. and Japan. I met Shelia as part of a recent trip to Pegaworld iNspire https://www.pega.com/events/pegaworld held in Las Vegas. Shelia delivered one of the keynotes on the main stage and was talking about Aflac's journey and how they have unleashed the power of Pega AI and automation. After her keynote, I sat down with Shelia for a quick chat for the podcast. By the way, you can watch Shelia’s keynote and all of the talks from Pegaworld on-demand here https://www.pega.com/events/pegaworld. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The messy middle of customer service revisited – Interview with Michael Ramsey of ServiceNow https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/07/the-messy-middle-of-customer-service-revisited-interview-with-michael-ramsey-of-servicenow/ – and is number 473 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Michael Ramsey, VP of Customer Workflow Products at ServiceNow https://www.servicenow.com/, a cloud computing platform that help companies manage digital workflows for enterprise operations. Michael joins me today to revisit the idea of the messy middle of customer experience, what's happened since we last spoke about this around 2 1/2 years ago, what companies are doing to clean up their messy middles, the role AI and process mining plays in that, how generative AI is helping with this sort of endeavour and who’s doing it well. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The pragmatic approach to transforming customer service – Interview with Mike Upton of First Tech Credit Union https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/07/the-pragmatic-approach-to-transforming-customer-service-interview-with-mike-upton-of-first-tech-credit-union/ – and is number 472 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at TextExpander https://textexpander.com/ for sponsoring this episode of my podcast. TextExpander is an auto-complete tool that allows your team to eliminate repetitive typing and stay on the same page with just a few keystrokes allowing you to delight more customers in less time. Click here https://textexpander.com/podcast/punkcx to find out more and to get a 20% discount for the first 12 months of TextExpander if you use the code: SWINSCOE
Today’s interview is with Michael Upton, Chief Digital & Technology Officer at First Tech Credit Union (or First Tech) https://www.firsttechfed.com/, which is the US’s premier credit union serving the world’s leading technology-oriented companies and their employees. I met Mike as part of a recent trip to Pegaworld iNspire https://www.pega.com/events/pegaworld held in Las Vegas. Mike was talking at one of the break-out sessions, and his topic was The Pragmatic Approach to Transforming Customer Service. I couldn’t resist that title and thought Mike’s insights would appeal to you too so I nabbed Mike for a quick chat for the podcast. By the way, you can view the replays of the talks on-demand here https://www.pega.com/events/pegaworld. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Purposefully designed experiences don’t happen by accident – Interview with Deborah Battaglia of Assurant https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/06/purposefully-designed-experiences-dont-happen-by-accident-interview-with-deborah-battaglia-of-assurant/ – and is number 471 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Deborah (Deb) Battaglia, Senior Vice President, Customer Experience at Assurant https://www.assurant.com/, Inc, a global B2B2C Fortune 300 company that provides risk management and insurance products to leading automotive, housing, and mobile technology companies. Deb joins me today to talk about the ‘why’ & vision for their transformation, how long the programme has been running, what they have achieved in terms of outcomes, how the pandemic impacted things, the outlook for the future and how they aim to leverage new technologies as well as some key learnings & top tips for others on their own journey. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Developing empathy within ourselves and the machines that we build – Interview with Minter Dial https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/06/developing-empathy-within-ourselves-and-the-machines-that-we-build-interview-with-minter-dial/ – and is number 470 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.
Today’s interview is with Minter Dial https://www.minterdial.com/, an international speaker and a multiple award-winning author, specialized in leadership, branding and transformation. Back in February 2019, Minter joined me on the podcast https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2019/02/what-more-empathy-in-business-and-artificial-intelligence-ai-will-look-like-interview-with-minter-dial/ to talk about his book: Heartificial Empathy. Now, so much has happened since then that he felt compelled to update the book https://www.amazon.com/Heartificial-Empathy-2nd-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/B0C1J9ZT3W/ and is back to talk to me about why he felt the need to update the book, what’s changed, why the development of empathy is still important, how we can develop it not only within ourselves but also the machines that we develop, what to watch out for when we do so and how the emergence of ChatGPT and the whole generative AI wave affects all of this. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Why you should be adopting an Experience Mindset – Interview with Tiffani Bova of Salesforce https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/06/why-you-should-be-adopting-an-experience-mindset-interview-with-tiffani-bova-of-salesforce/ – and is number 469 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at TextExpander https://textexpander.com/ for sponsoring this episode of my podcast. TextExpander is an auto-complete tool that allows your team to eliminate repetitive typing and stay on the same page with just a few keystrokes allowing you to delight more customers in less time. Click here https://textexpander.com/podcast/punkcx to find out more and to get a 20% discount for the first 12 months of TextExpander if you use the code: SWINSCOE
Today’s interview is with Tiffani Bova, the global customer growth and innovation evangelist at Salesforce https://www.salesforce.com/, and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Growth IQ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Growth-IQ-Smarter-Choices-Business/dp/0525534407/. Tiffani joins me today to talk about her new book: The Experience Mindset: Changing the Way You Think About Growth https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0BCKSLLQV/, what is an Experience Mindset, what’s the best way to adopt one, why it’s important to take a combined customer and employee experience approach, the research that accompanied the development of the book and what’s the payoff to adopting an Experience Mindset. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Customer experience (CX) leaders will become the engagement quarterbacks of the future – Interview with Mike Murchison of Ada https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/05/customer-experience-cx-leaders-will-become-the-engagement-quarterbacks-of-the-future-interview-with-mike-murchison-of-ada/ – and is number 468 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at Pega https://www.pega.com/ for sponsoring my podcast this month. We are fast approaching PegaWorld iNspire https://www.pega.com/events/pegaworld/ which is Pega’s annual conference that will be held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV, from June 11th to 13th. This year it will be an in-person event, for the first time in four years, and will bring together experts and industry leaders to demystify technologies like generative AI and intelligent automation They will also illustrate how enterprises can practically apply these technologies to turbocharge productivity, improve low-code app development, and optimize customer engagement. Check out PegaWorld.com http://pegaworld.com/ to find out more and, hopefully, I’ll see you there.
Today’s interview is with Mike Murchison, co-founder and CEO of Ada https://www.ada.cx/, a leading customer service automation provider. Mike joins me today to talk about how the conventional customer experience playbook is outdated, why brands should be talking to their customers more as they grow (not less), a view on the future of customer experience, what service and support teams will do in the future and how CX leaders are likely to be the quarterbacks of the future. This interview follows on from my recent interview – There’s no point having a fast bike, if you don’t know how to ride it – Interview with Jerry Haywood of Boost.ai https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/2023/05/theres-no-point-having-a-fast-bike-if-you-dont-know-how-to-ride-it-interview-with-jerry-haywood-of-boost-ai/ – and is number 467 in the series of interviews https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/category/interviews/ with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at Pega https://www.pega.com/ for sponsoring my podcast this month. We are fast approaching PegaWorld iNspire https://www.pega.com/events/pegaworld/ which is Pega’s annual conference that will be held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV, from June 11th to 13th. This year it will be an in-person event, for the first time in four years, and will bring together experts and industry leaders to demystify technologies like generative AI and intelligent automation They will also illustrate how enterprises can practically apply these technologies to turbocharge productivity, improve low-code app development, and optimize customer engagement. Check out PegaWorld.com http://pegaworld.com/ to find out more and, hopefully, I’ll see you there.
