Podcasts about CX

Live from the LEAD Summit, Sandy Hernandez sits down with Sarah Angelmar, Executive Director of Customer Experience at Clarins Group, the brand that helped define “clean beauty” before it was a trend. From their AI chatbot "Cara" to the emotional science behind loyalty, Sarah reveals how Clarins blends 71 years of family heritage with bold CX innovation. Timestamps [02:00] – Clarins' roots: From plant science to prestige skincare [05:30] – "Cara": The AI chatbot that supports (not replaces) beauty advisors [08:15] – Why Clarins became a B-Corp, and what it means for customers [11:45] – Rethinking loyalty: No points. No gimmicks. Just trust. [15:20] – How customer emotion informs CX design [19:10] – Family-owned in a corporate world: Moving fast without losing soul ✨ “We don't want to be transactional. We want to be unforgettable” — Sarah Angelmar Join our global retail community: www.globalretailleaders.com

"Customers are now expecting highly personalised, seamless, and efficient interactions across all the touch points,” stated Rahul Sareen, the Senior Leader–Cross Industry, Private Equity and Startups Solutions at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Sareen's statement represents the state of customer experience (CX) today. It's a demand that is forcing businesses to completely rethink how they engage with customers.In the recent episode of the Don't Panic It's Just Data podcast, John Santaferraro, CEO and Head Research Analyst at Ferraro Consulting, speaks to Gary Class, Industry Strategist, Financial Services at Teradata and Sareen. They discussed how data, AI, and hyper-personalisation are reshaping customer experience (CX). The time of one-size-fits-all customer service is long over. Sareen emphasises this change by quoting Jeff Bezos: "If you have 4.5 million customers, then you cannot just build one store. You have to build 4.5 million stores." This isn't just about dividing customers into groups; it's about providing a truly unique and personal experience for each person. How AI is Enhancing Customer Experience (CX)Alluding to the use of gen AI and AI agents in customer experience (CX), Class highlights a key application of AI – analysing unstructured data. He says, “The one time that customers tell you what they really want and need, it's on the phone." By "grafting the unstructured data analysed through speech and text onto the structured data," businesses get equipped with rich insights on untapped possibilities. Overall, it also provides a 360-degree preview of the customer experience (CX), which allows for increased proactive and custom developments.AI agents are set to take hyper-personalisation to new heights, the podcast guests believe. Alluding to the pros, Sareen points to their "predictive and proactive nature," which lets AI agents "identify and resolve issues before even customers are aware of them." Imagine a situation where a device automatically finds a problem, starts a support case, identifies a solution, and even applies a fix—all in real-time and without any input from the customer. Sareen calls this the "Nirvana state" of AI-driven customer service. It promises a smooth and genuinely smart experience.Unified Platform for Simplified Quality DataSimplifying how we manage raw data and turn it into quality data in a single system is critical for meeting the needs of AI in customer experience (CX).This is where Teradata comes in. Class says the company's approach centres on "harvesting all the data that you can collect in a conformed and harmonised framework." Their strategy includes providing industry-specific data models and leveraging the "capacity of a relational database engine that can deal with complexity at...

Hemos hecho vídeos de la historia de muchas marcas… pero nos faltaba nada menos que Audi. La historia de esta marca es larga y complicada así que la voy a hacer “a mi manera”, contando brevemente cómo nació la marca y repasando los 10 coches que a mí me parecen claves en su historia… a ver qué os parece la idea. Aunque la historia de Audi se puede remontar a 1899 cuando nace la marca Horch, semilla de la actual empresa, la Audi moderna nace en realidad en 1965 cuando pasa a formar parte del Grupo VAG o Volkswagen AG. En el vídeo damos un repaso a los años que van de 1899 a 1965. Aquí vamos con el listado de coches. 100 coupé C1 (1969). ¿El primer Audi Premium? Podría estar en esta lista el 100 berlina, que ya contaba con muchas de las cualidades de este coupé, pero es que esta marca desde el principio ha cuidado los modelos deportivos y coupés, esos que la han ayudado a tener la imagen de marca tan buena que ahora tiene… y esos que esta, lamentablemente, abandonando. Quattro (1980). Y todo fue diferente. Clave, porque su enorme éxito en competición, el hecho de cambiar por completo la tecnología en el mundo de los rallyes, y sus éxitos pusieron a la marca en primera fila como marca tecnológica y capaz de hacer coches muy sofisticados y eficaces… y como decía, fue el comienzo de la tecnología “Quattro”, con distintas tecnologías, hasta el día de hoy. 100 C3 (1982). Aerodinámica e inyección directa. Este 100 fue probablemente el primer coche de serie que llevaba los cristales enrasados con la carrocería, uno de los motivos de que su CX se situase en el 0,30, muy notable en su momento. Luego en 1989 llegó el motor turbodiésel de 2,5 litros con inyección directa, los famosos, para bien y para mal, TDi… recordad el “dieselgate”. A8 (1994). Chasis de aluminio y tracción total. En 1994 ni BMW ni Mercedes ofrecían una buena tracción total y una carrocería de aluminio para compensar el sobre peso de la tracción “Quattro”. Este modelo asestó un duro golpe de imagen a su competencia. RS2 Avant (1994). Con la ayuda de Porsche. Este break, o Avant como los llama Audi, era y es un verdadero devorador de las autopistas de velocidad libre en Alemania. Porsche ayudó en la puesta a punto del motor y del bastidor. El motor era un 5 cilindros de 2.226 cm3, 20 válvulas y un gran turbocompresor de forma que se alcanzaban los 315 CV. A3 (1998). Crecer por abajo. Este coche me parecía un Golf disfrazado de Audi y cuando lo probé me di cuenta de que no, era una declaración de intención es de Audi de que podía crecer hacia abajo, pero proponiendo coches con todo el ADN de Audi. Y ese A3 durante sus ya 4 generaciones, lo ha conseguido... TT (1998). ¡Te echamos de menos! Echo de menos al TT doblemente. Primero, porque tuve un TTS de la segunda generación con motor 2.0 TFSi de 272 CV y un excepcional cambio de doble embrague de 6 marchas… le echo de menos. Y todos le echaremos de menos porque ha dejado de fabricarse. R8 LMP (2000). ¡Cinco victorias en Le Mans! Este modelo fue el comienzo. En este momento Audi es la segunda marca con más victorias en las 24 horas de Le Mans, con 12+1, detrás de Porsche con 19. Y todo comenzó con este espectacular coche. RS4 B7 (2005). Lobo con piel de cordero. Y es que este coche, ya sea en berlina o Avant, parece un inocente coche familiar. Pero en su interior se esconde un motor de 4,2 litros y 420 CV combinado con la tracción total tipo Quattro. Se puede decir que Audi con este coche se reafirmó como constructor de coche de estética “inocente”, prácticos y con prestaciones de auténtico deportivo. R8 (2006). ¡Tiembla Ferrari! En realidad, este Audi seguía más el camino que abrió el Honda NSX que la gama Ferrari. Porque era un coupé de altas prestaciones, pero al mismo tiempo muy utilizable en el día a día, incluso confortable y amable. A esa “amabilidad” de su comportamiento colaboraba la tracción total. He probado estos coches en carretera y a fondo en circuito, en 2015, nada menos que Montmeló la versión V10 Plus de 610 CV… y me sorprende los “fácil” que resulta un coche de este nivel. Otro modelo que Audi ya ha dejado de fabricar… ya les diría a los “chicos” de Audi, ¿estáis seguros de lo que hacéis? Conclusión. Sinceramente a Audi le costó mucho esfuerzo ponerse a la par de las otras marcas Premium alemanas como BMW y Mercedes. Y lo consiguió a base de hacer buenos coches, de ser muy dinámicos presentando nuevos modelos de forma incesante y estando presente con modelos que son verdaderos “motores de imagen” para la marca. En cambio, últimamente, han estado un poco despistados o no han tenido mucho acierto. Su apuesta “a muerte” por los eléctricos, de Audi y de prácticamente todo el grupo VAG, casi ignorando a los híbridos, se ha mostrado todo un error.

In this episode of The Intuitive Customer, Colin Shaw speaks with Andy Traba, VP of Product Marketing at NICE, about the company's new mission: Creating a NiCE World. This isn't just a rebranding message — it's a strategic shift toward unified, proactive, and AI-enabled customer experiences. Andy and Colin explore why AI alone isn't enough, the dangers of siloed implementations, and why leading organizations are turning to platforms — not point solutions — to orchestrate connected, emotionally resonant journeys. If your organization is serious about CX transformation, this conversation provides clear guidance on where to start, what to avoid, and how to align internal functions toward a shared customer strategy. Quote of the Episode “The moment you find success with AI, you'll want more. That's why you have to start with a platform — not a point solution — so your entire organization can scale, align, and deliver a truly connected experience.” — Andy Traba, VP of Product Marketing, NiCE  

This week's podcast is about my visit to Tencent AI Cloud in Beijing.You can listen to this podcast here, which has the slides and graphics mentioned. Also available at iTunes and Google Podcasts.Here is the link to the TechMoat Consulting.Here is the link to our Tech Tours.My are my 3 take-aways:Take-Away 1: Tencent Cloud is Doing “Fast-Follower with Advantages” in AI.WeChat and Tencent Cloud Are Going International Leading with Tech Services.I Expect Tencent Cloud to Be One of the World's Top 5 AI Cloud Companies. ---------I am a consultant and keynote speaker on how to accelerate growth with improving customer experiences (CX) and digital moats.I am a partner at TechMoat Consulting, a consulting firm specialized in how to increase growth with improved customer experiences (CX), personalization and other types of customer value. Get in touch here.I am also author of the Moats and Marathons book series, a framework for building and measuring competitive advantages in digital businesses.This content (articles, podcasts, website info) is not investment, legal or tax advice. The information and opinions from me and any guests may be incorrect. The numbers and information may be wrong. The views expressed may no longer be relevant or accurate. This is not investment advice. Investing is risky. Do your own research.Support the show

On this episode, I'm talking about returns, refunds, and the hidden layer of post-purchase experience with Fernando Pedraz, founder of Reveni.We get into why instant refunds aren't just good CX, they're good business — and how Reveni is helping brands turn a painful process into a growth lever. Fernando shares how they assess refund risk in real time, what most brands get wrong about cross-border returns, and where automation adds value without losing the human touch.We also talk about the role of AI in fraud prevention, logistics, and finance infrastructure, why the post-purchase stack is still underdeveloped, and what smart brands are doing to stay profitable in a tougher market.If you're thinking about CX beyond the buy button, or building smarter systems behind the scenes, this one's for you.This episode is brought to you by Reveni. Reveni helps eCommerce brands turn refunds into retained revenue, by making instant exchanges the default, not the exception. Learn more at Reveni.Checkout Factory here.Sign up to our newsletter here.

In 130 episode of Good Morning BSS World, I reconnect with Rod Jones, patron and co-founder of the Africa Federation of GBS Associations, to explore the latest developments in Africa's rapidly expanding Global Business Services (GBS) landscape. Broadcasting from Johannesburg, Rod provides a regional update across Southern, Northern, Western, Eastern, and Central Africa. From the YES youth employment program in South Africa and government-backed strategic roadmaps in Ghana and Rwanda, to massive foreign investments flowing into Egypt, this episode paints a vivid picture of a continent on the rise in the BPO/GBS space. Highlights include:Egypt's booming CX sector with Concentrix, IGT Solutions, and VXI targeting nearly 50,000 new jobs by 2028.Cameroon's surprising BPO potential, including a multilingual workforce and 400,000 German speakers!Ghana's 5-year GBS development plan with full governmental endorsement.Ethiopia and Rwanda's structured approaches to national GBS strategy and incubation.The formation of new country-level associations and a forthcoming advisory board of global GBS leaders.Rod also touches on international interest in Johannesburg as a future BPO hub and plans for the Africa Federation's high-level gathering in Addis Abeba this September. Tune in to discover why Africa is becoming a powerhouse for global outsourcing and how collaboration, innovation, and investment are transforming its GBS landscape.    Links:Rod Jones - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodjonessouthafrica/Africa Federation of GBS Associations - https://africagbsfederation.org/Africa Federation of GBS Associations on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/africa-gbs-federation/posts/?feedView=allTalk to AI about this episode - https://gmbw.onpodcastai.com/episodes/uXomTVdxgZj/chatElevate Africa - https://www.weelevateafrica.org/Follow the Leaders - https://followtheleaders.pl/  ****************************  My name is Wiktor Doktór and on daily basis I run Pro Progressio Club https://klub.proprogressio.pl - it's a community of many private companies and public sector organizations that care about the development of business relations in the B2B model. In the Good Morning BSS World podcast, apart from solo episodes, I share interviews with experts and specialists from global BPO/GBS industry.If you want to learn more about me, please visit my social media channels:YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/wiktordoktorHere is also link to the English podcasts Playlist - https://bit.ly/GoodMorningBSSWorldPodcastYTLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wiktordoktorYou can also write to me. My email address is - kontakt(@) wiktordoktor.pl  ****************************  This Podcast is supported by Patrons:Marzena Sawicka https://www.linkedin.com/in/marzena-sawicka-a9644a23/Przemysław Sławiński https://www.linkedin.com/in/przemys%C5%82aw-s%C5%82awi%C5%84ski-155a4426/Damian Ruciński https://www.linkedin.com/in/damian-ruci%C5%84ski/Szymon Kryczka https://www.linkedin.com/in/szymonkryczka/Grzegorz Ludwin https://www.linkedin.com/in/gludwin/Adam Furmańczuk https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-agilino/Anna Czyż - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-czyz-%F0%9F%94%B5%F0%9F%94%B4%F0%9F%9F%A2-68597813/Igor Tkach - https://www.linkedin.com/in/igortkach/  If you like my podcasts give a like, subscribe and join Patrons of Good Morning BSS World as well. Here are two links to do so:Patronite - https://patronite.pl/wiktordoktor  Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/wiktordoktor Or if you liked this episode and would like to buy me virtual coffee, you can use this link https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wiktordoktor - by doing so you support the growth and distribution of this podcast.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/good-morning-bss-world--4131868/support.

Mazda dévoile le CX-5 2026, Hyundai présente la Ioniq 6 NLes détails concernant le Mazda CX-5 2026Gabriel fait un tour dans la Ioniq 6 NNissan pourrait prêter ses usines américaines à HondaSubaru dévoile l'Uncharted Entrevue avec Frédéric Lambert, co-fondateur du site Eletrek, au sujet de son essai de véhicules électriques chinoisCette semaine, le Guide de l'auto reçoit Frédéric Lambert, co-fondateur du site Electrek, qui a pu faire l'essai de véhicules électriques en Chine, dont le Xiaomi YU7. Il est notamment question des avancées technologiques proposées par ceux-ci, ainsi que de leur potentielle commercialisation en Amérique du Nord.Essais Mercedes-Benz CLA électrique et Volvo XC60 2026Cette semaine, Louis-Philippe et Gabriel partagent leurs impressions de conduite au sujet de la Mercedes-Benz CLA électrique et du Volvo XC60 2026.Pour de l'information concernant l'utilisation de vos données personnelles - https://omnystudio.com/policies/listener/fr

Neste episódio, mergulhamos com Thiago Dutra na verdadeira jornada por trás da aplicação de IA nas empresas. Mais do que adotar modelos prontos, é preciso transformar processos, cultura e mindset para operar em um ambiente orientado por dados e hipóteses. Uma conversa sobre estruturas organizacionais, esteiras de dados e o papel crítico dos POs na transformação real com IA.Participante: ·         Thiago Dutra, Executive Director, MATH.  Apresentação: ·         Marcel Ghiraldini, CGO, MATH. ·         Fabiana Amaral, Diretora Executiva de CX e Marketing, MATH.

The Pivot Firebird and Propain Tyee don't look super different on paper — they've got about the same suspension travel, generally similar geometry, and both can convert between 29'' and MX setups — but they ride quite differently from one another.So what sets them apart? We wade into that topic, offer our early take on a couple of new pieces of Italian suspension, argue about what does (and doesn't) make for a good mixed wheel bike setup, discuss Bosch's output-boosing software upgrade for their Gen 5 CX motor, and a whole bunch more.RELATED LINKS:Get Our Free Newsletter & Gear GiveawaysBLISTER+ Get Yourself CoveredTOPICS & TIMES:Pivot Firebird (2:29)Propain Tyee (21:12)Salsa Blackthorn (25:24)EXT Vecta (33:23)Formula Selva V (40:04)Bosch CX Software Upgrade (51:11)CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Blister CinematicCRAFTEDGEAR:30Blister Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 251: In 2018, Dell set out to do something big: turn customer feedback into a system that could not only provide insights, but help set priorities and run the business. They had the data. They had the intent. But they made a compromise that many organizations settle on: Rather than enforce one unified approach to customer feedback, they allowed each team to build its own. While this helped with initial adoption and change management, it also led to fragmentation—multiple tools, different methods, no shared truth. And it got worse over time. Real progress ultimately would require centralizing what had become scattered. When Dell's Marc Stein appeared on this podcast in 2018 (episode 129), the company had just completed its EMC merger and launched a chief customer office. The ambition: one integrated Net Promoter System to tie sentiment to economics and put the customer at the center of every decision. But good intentions ran into a harsh reality: Every function was listening to customers, but no one was hearing the same thing.  In this episode, Mike Valanzola, Dell's Senior Director of Voice of Customer and NPS Operations, picks up the story. He explains how misaligned tools, siloed ownership, and governance gaps made customer feedback hard to act on. His team didn't want to tear down what existed. Instead, they brought it together. Through consolidation, centralization, shared standards, and stronger governance, they transformed scattered signals into an enterprise-wide system of action. The turning point came with the Customer Experience Roadmap and Accreditation. The CXRA gave Dell a framework to drive internal accountability and rebuild trust in the system. As Mike describes, cross-functional teams now meet weekly to act on shared signals. Tomorrow's goal? Make every employee a promoter and make every signal actionable. Guest: Mike Valanzola, Senior Director, Voice of Customer and NPS Operations, Dell Technologies Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Time-Stamped Topics 00:01 - Marc Stein's 2018 ambition: a unified CX system 03:50 - Why integration faltered: fragmentation, politics, data overload 06:20 - Mike's mission: centralize tools, enforce governance 10:00 - Transforming custom systems to create shared accountability 13:30 - Early delivery surprises and sentiment gaps 17:10 - Predictive models and operational fixes 21:00 - How Dell built trust in the new NPS engine 27:45 - Weekly action meetings: turning listening into doing 35:30 - Why CXRA certification mattered, internally and externally 40:00 - Reflections on past company decisions Notable Quotes “ We have a robust  partner community that allows us to  expand our scale in terms of the customers that we can  touch. Each and every one of those folks has some things that are important for us to hear.” [8:00]  ”We do—and did—as a company, listen regularly, but we didn't always hear. The reason for that came down to every function across the company, ultimately doing their own listening programs, using their own application, governing how they listened, controlling what they got back, and not sharing it.” [18:00]  ”We had been really in a run-the-business function, really focused on  NPS management, really focused on owning  that measurement for the company. And now, I was proposing a large-scale, end-to-end corporate transformation that was going to require my own team  to think about how we operate, and effectively operate differently.” [28:00] Additional Resources Hear our 2018 podcast with Marc Stein on Dell's original CX ambition, Bringing Net Promoter to Scale Learn more about Bain's MyCX Roadmap & Accreditation

This week on After Hours x Above the Fold, I sat down with CX specialist and Midwest dad extraordinaire, Larry Thoma.We got into what great CX looks like after the checkout page, how brands can use returns to build trust (not just process refunds), and why “dishwasher safe” is not a real instruction. Larry's worked with brands like Yeti, Caraway, and See's Candy, so he's got receipts (and hot takes!).We talked about email touchpoints, refund timing, customer segmentation, and the wild world of return policies (Marine Layer, we're looking at you). Plus, Larry's take on what actually makes someone a loyal customer is one you'll want to steal.If you're in retention, CX, or just trying to stop losing customers in the post-purchase void, you'll want to catch this one.

Jon Florence is the SVP of Industry Solutions at Xima Software. He is based in South Jordan, Utah. Xima is a contact center software company that is focused on AI solutions. Peter Ryan called Jon to discuss AI in CX. Beyond the hype, how can companies managing their own CX and BPOs all benefit from the use of AI in the contact center? What are the genuine and practical use cases that move the dial and which claims are just hype?  What can you really do with AI today? https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-florence-67019a79/ https://ximasoftware.com/ SUMMARY: Mark Hillary and Peter Ryan introduce Jon Florence, SVP of Industry Solutions at Xima Software. Jon explains his role in integrating AI into customer experience solutions. They delve into the hype cycle of AI, comparing it to the VoIP boom, and emphasize the importance of understanding business needs before implementing AI. Jon advises starting with simple AI tools like speech analytics and messaging bots, and stresses the need for certified integrations. He also highlights the importance of testing AI capabilities and ensuring long-term vendor stability to avoid future consolidation issues.

Is it time to finally admit that not all customers are created equal—and that treating them as if they are might be costing your business more than you realize? In this episode, I dig deep with Dan McCarthy, Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Maryland and co-founder of Theta, to challenge one of the most hotly debated questions in customer experience: Should all customers be treated the same? Dan's expertise in customer lifetime value (CLV) exposes a stark reality—most companies are bleeding money on large swaths of their customer base and missing out on major growth opportunities by not prioritizing their highest value customers. The impact of understanding, modeling, and acting on CLV? Smarter resource allocation, optimized acquisition channels, and retention strategies that actually move the needle. Why should you listen to Dan? His work—frequently featured in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and The Economist—sits at the intersection of advanced academic research and bottom-line business outcomes. Having sold a business to Nike and now a partner at Theta, Dan brings a rare combination of rigorous analytics and practical execution, helping both corporate leaders and investors see their customers (and their value) more clearly. If you want your business to thrive—not just survive—in a customer-driven market, this episode is essential listening. Here are three burning questions Dan answers during our conversation: How do you accurately calculate customer lifetime value, and why do so many businesses get it wrong? What are the most common missteps that leaders make when trying to identify and serve high-value customers? How can customer data be used to shift business strategy, improve profitability, and even recalibrate entire corporate valuations? Be sure to tune in and subscribe on your platform of choice: Listen & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Listen & Subscribe on Spotify And remember, The Delighted Customers Podcast is available on all your favorite podcast platforms! Meet Dan McCarthy Dan McCarthy is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, and a co-founder of Theta, a leading business focused on customer lifetime value prediction and insights. Previously, Dan taught at Emory University's Goizueta Business School for seven years before moving to Maryland (my alma mater—Go Terps!). Dan's innovative research and commentary on customer lifetime value, corporate valuation, and unit economics have attracted national attention, appearing in media outlets such as Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, CBS, CNBC, and The Economist. He is also nationally recognized for his work partnering with Dr. Peter Fader, with whom he initially founded a business acquired by Nike before their current collaboration at Theta. Before his academic career, Dan earned both his undergraduate and PhD degrees from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He spent several years on Wall Street at a hedge fund, bringing a financial and data-driven lens to marketing science. As a frequent speaker and consultant, Dan helps enterprise leaders, marketers, and investors leverage advanced modeling to answer high-stakes questions about profitability, resource allocation, and growth. To connect with Dan, reach out on LinkedIn. References and Show Notes Learn more about Theta Connect with Dan McCarthy: LinkedIn Past podcast guests mentioned: Fred Reichheld (on CX metrics), Dr. Peter Fader (Wharton School, on not treating all customers the same) Read Dan's and Peter Fader's research: Customer-Base Corporate Valuation Warby Parker (example discussed: CLV, growth, and valuation) Media coverage: Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, The Economist, USA Today, Barron's Delta Sky Club (loyalty programs and customer value example) Ready to rethink your approach to customers? Hit play and subscribe now!

Guest post by Christine Ramsey, Head of Client Operations Klearcom They say that "the worst type of problem is the one you can't see." This is especially true when it comes to empowering and enhancing Customer Experience (CX). For a business, there are very few challenges more costly than a poor customer journey or a negative review. In fact, one bad review can cause significant damage to a brand. As well as jeopardising customer retention, substandard CX can prevent referrals, undermine brand trust and hinder business growth. Given its impact on a company's long-term success, it is therefore imperative that CX is both tested and trusted. This means uncovering and understanding any blind spots (those problems that are hard or impossible to see) which could affect customer service and confidence levels. For multinational companies serving global customer bases, these undetected issues - such as poor call quality, communication errors and misrouted calls - across their Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems could not only be disruptive but also brand damaging. IVR systems allow businesses to automate call interactions through the use of voice prompts and DTMF inputs. IVR systems are therefore intended to save businesses time and money, while seamlessly and successfully transferring the customer to the desired department or getting them to a resolution quickly through self-serve options. However, if unchecked and untested, blind spots in IVR systems can have the opposite effect - causing delays, customer frustration, and in more serious cases, even system outages. Because they tend to fly under the radar, they often affect customers long before anyone on the client side realizes there's a problem (which can be costly from a reputational and financial perspective.) For example, a customer trying to reach their network provider's service desk could be prompted by the IVR to state the desired department but then is misrouted to sales. Or there might be a customer service message during a holiday period which is incorrect, leading to confusion and dissatisfaction among large cohorts of customers. CX blind spots can have various knock-on effects on a business, from reputational damage and reduced revenues to customer churn and compliance failures. In sectors which are highly regulated or during peak periods when demand is high, blind spots can potentially be catastrophic. In addition, the aftermath of a blind spot or outage can negatively impact employee morale, with faults leading to more calls from frustrated customers, resulting in more pressure on staff. Testing IVR systems can ensure optimal performance and experience for all stakeholders. By identifying and rectifying blind spots, IVR testing drives success for both customers and businesses - upholding quality, empowering customer journeys, and reducing the risk of outages. Furthermore, Call Detail Records (CDRs) can assist organisations with technical information to get resolution on blind spots faster as it enables them to pinpoint exactly where the issues are and reduce time to resolution (TTR.) With tighter regulations and rising customer expectations, companies are feeling the pressure to deliver a standout customer experience. To keep up, they need to be proactively testing their systems to catch blind spots before they turn into outages or unhappy customers. At the end of the day, it's not just the customer journey on the line but the future of the business. See more stories here. More about Irish Tech News Irish Tech News are Ireland's No. 1 Online Tech Publication and often Ireland's No.1 Tech Podcast too. You can find hundreds of fantastic previous episodes and subscribe using whatever platform you like via our Anchor.fm page here: https://anchor.fm/irish-tech-news If you'd like to be featured in an upcoming Podcast email us at Simon@IrishTechNews.ie now to discuss. Irish Tech News have a range of services available to help promote your business. Why not drop us a...

Lauren Pufpaf, COO and Co-Founder of Feed Media, joins us to explore how music is far more than just background noise — it's a potent driver of customer emotion, behavior, and loyalty. Lauren reveals how brands like American Eagle and fitness platforms are using curated music to create “sticky” digital experiences that boost engagement and conversions. The conversation dives into the neuroscience behind why music works so effectively in CX and how the right sound strategy can elevate everything from retail apps to telehealth waiting rooms. Hit play and discover how your brand might be missing out on a powerful emotional trigger.

Verizon's customer experience transformation started with a clear priority: listen to employees, study the data, and rebuild from the inside out. On this episode of The Modern Customer Podcast, I'm joined by Brian Higgins, Chief Customer Experience Officer for Verizon Consumer. With more than two decades at Verizon, Brian has led everything from network operations to product and marketing. Today he's leading Project 624, the company's largest customer experience transformation yet. In this episode, we cover: ✔️ Why Verizon focused AI on employee pain points first ✔️ How they analyzed the root causes of churn and sales drop-off ✔️ The strategy behind opening 400+ new retail stores ✔️ Why they created a Customer Champion team to resolve long-tail service issues ✔️ How data, EX, and AI fuel continuous CX transformation This episode is packed with takeaways for CX leaders navigating AI, change management, and complexity at scale. Brian's approach is smart, grounded, and refreshingly tactical.

What's on your mind? Let CX Passport know...What does customer experience look like in Ghana — and across Africa?In this *Greatest Hits* episode of CX Passport, Kojo Hayford takes us on a journey through customer experience transformation on the African continent. Kojo is the Founder and CEO of eSAL LLC, a firm leading the charge in Business Process Outsourcing and CX innovation in Ghana and beyond.Originally aired as E181, this conversation resonated because of Kojo's clarity, passion for talent development, and honest perspective on what it takes to build something meaningful and sustainable in a growing economy.CHAPTERS  00:00  Demographic dividend in Africa  01:40  Why Kojo founded eSAL  04:30  Customer experience in the Ghanaian context  08:42  Opportunities for BPO in Africa  13:55  Developing talent and future leaders  18:50  Serving global brands from Africa  21:40  First Class Lounge  26:45  Leadership and authenticity  30:10  Lessons from his father's legacyEpisode resources:  Connect with Kojo Hayford on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kojo-hayford  Learn more about eSAL: https://www.esal.llcIf you like CX Passport, I have 3 quick requests:✅ Subscribe to the CX Passport YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@cxpassport  ✅ Join other “CX travelers” with the weekly CX Passport newsletter https://cxpassport.kit.com/signup  ✅ Bring

El 2 de mayo de 1976 debutaba en el GP de España, en el Jarama, el único monoplaza de 6 ruedas que ha corrido en la F1. Ya estaba allí. Y lo que pasó a partir de ese momento, te lo han contado muchas veces, pero ¿cuántas te han contado lo que sucedió antes? Es lo que vamos a hacer en este podcast. Como siempre comenzamos poniéndonos en antecedentes. Y para eso nos vamos a las temporadas anteriores, a los años 1974 y 1975. Y analicemos la parrilla, porque eso nos ayudará a entender muchas cosas. Porque en esos años la inmensa mayoría de los equipos utilizaban el motor V8 Ford Cosworth DFV y había una cierta obsesión por Ferrari. Todas las escuderías tenían claro que Ferrari jugaba con ventaja gracias a sus potentes motores de 12 cilindros. Cuando llegaban las rectas largas y sobre todo la recta principal, donde se producen la mayoría de los adelantamientos, nadie podía con los Ferrari y sus 12 cilindros, lo que obsesionaba a todas las escuderías de la F1, entre ellas a Tyrrel, propiedad el británico Ken Tyrrel, que había ganado el Mundial de Constructores en 1971 y los de pilotos en 1971 y 1973 con el ahora Sir Jackie Stewart… Ken veía difícil reverdecer laureles si no hacia algo “diferente”. En lo que sí se parecen mucho los F1 actuales y los de esos años es en su pésimo CX… ¡mucho peor que el de un camión! Y no solo por lo alerones, sino porque al llevar las ruedas descubiertas y al girar a mucha velocidad producen remolinos y turbulencias que suponen un verdadero freno al avance. Ken Tyrrell no dejaba de darle vueltas a cómo mejorar la penetración aerodinámica de sus coches y hablo de ello con Derek Gardner. Derek pensó que un monoplaza con un tren delantero más estrecho y ruedas de menor diámetro serien una solución magnifica para conseguir que el Tyrrel fuese más rápido en rectas… pero lo perdería todo en las curvas. Y el genio de Gardner pensó: ¿Y si pongo en vez de dos ruedas delanteras grandes 4 pequeñas? Gardner con un dibujo casi infantil de un antiguo proyecto pensado para la 500 Millas de Indianápolis consiguió convencer a Ken… increíble. Las 4 ruedas delanteras de 10 pulgadas permitían un morro muy afilado, una mejor penetración en el aire, que Derek Gardner suponía un 20 por ciento más favorable, lo que redundaría en una velocidad punta mayor en recta. Además, en curva la superficie de contacto de las 4 ruedas pequeñas sería más o menos la misma que con los dos grandes y los cuatro pequeños frenos tendrían una superficie de barrido igual e incluso superior. En agua las “primeras” ruedas delanteras quitarían el agua a las “segundas ruedas delanteras” y en caso de pinchazo, no era tan peligroso… Gracias a los esfuerzos del equipo se superaron mucho inconveniente y todo encajaba. ¿O no? El 22 de septiembre de 1975, en el Hotel Heathrow Hilton de Londres, Ken Tyrrel congrega a la prensa especializada y a buena parte del mundillo de la F1 para presentar su “P34” o “Project 34” o “Proyecto 34” como queráis. Al descubrir la lona que tapaba el coche los presentes no daban crédito a lo que veían y fueron muchos los malpensados que dijeron que era una maniobra de marketing para llamar la atención… ya verían que no. Pero el escepticismo era el denominador común… veamos algunas opiniones del momento: Frank Williams, propietario de su propio equipo: “No soy ingeniero, pero soy escéptico. Espero que no funcione, ya que ello nos costaría por lo menos seis meses para ponernos a su mismo nivel”. Gordon Murray, diseñador de Brabham: “Tendrán grandes problemas para hacerlo funcionar como se debe en las curvas, porque esto contrasta con las leyes fundamentales sobre la proyección de suspensiones. En cambio, andará muy bien corriendo sobre la nieve”. Sarcasmo. Harvey Postlethwaite, diseñador de Hesketh: “Se darán cuenta de que será imposible hacer funcionar esta idea. Todas las ventajas que puedan obtener con esta disposición quedarán a un lado ante la imposibilidad de ponerlo a punto. Por otra parte, será prácticamente imposible equilibrar el coche”. Peter Warr, jefe de Lotus: “Como idea para reducir la zona frontal y aumentar la velocidad me parece óptima, desde lo técnico será muy difícil de llevarlo a la práctica y dudo de que tenga éxito”. Teddy Mayer, jefe de McLaren: “Desde el punto de vista técnico será muy difícil de llevarlo a la práctica y dudo de que tenga éxito”. El debut tuvo lugar en el GP de España de F1 disputado en el Jarama, mi circuito, los días 1 y 2 de mayo de 1976. Debuto un solo coche que fue para Depailler, el más “entregado” a la causa de los dos pilotos. Para sorpresa de todos Depailler consiguió el tercer puesto de la parrilla al primer intento, muy por delante de su compañero de equipo. Más tarde problemas de frenos, en la vuelta 26, obligaron al abandono, pero la demostración estaba hecha. Al cuarto intento, en el GP de Suecia, los dos coches de 6 ruedas conseguían un doblete para la historia. Lo que os decía antes de los injusta que es la vida: La marca de ser el único piloto en ganar una prueba de F1 con un coche de 6 ruedas se quedará probablemente para siempre, en manos de Jody Scheckter… cuando la merecía más Depailler… La temporada 77 el coche perdió parte de su espíritu, con las vías ensanchadas, una carrocería más amplia, un chasis más pesado… y una escasa evolución de los neumáticos por parte de Goodyear… A perro enfermo todo son pulgas y la llegada de Ronnie Peterson, un talentoso piloto que sustituyo a Jody, no fue suficiente. El Gran Premio de Japón de 1977 fue su última carrera oficial, porque luego corrió en la F1 clásica. Resulta curioso que el P34 sustituyo al Tyrrel 007, pero al P34 no lo siguió un 009, sino un 008… ¿la propia Tyrrel los “ninguneaba”? No lo sé, pero el 008 diseñado por Maurice Phillippe estaba en las antípodas del P34 porque era un coche que no podía ser más conservador. Solo consiguió dos podios. Conclusión. Me voy a repetir diciendo que echo de menos los años en que el reglamento de la F1 era más permisivo de dio lugar a coches como este… Ahora que un coche te sorprenda… no es un milagro, sencillamente es imposible.

In this special highlights episode, we bring together the sharpest takes from two of our most insightful guests: David Edelman and Alex Mead. Together, they explore the evolving landscape of customer experience, personalization, and the rise of AI in service delivery — but from two very different angles.David Edelman, former CMO at Aetna and a pioneer in customer-centric digital transformation, shares why "customer experience is the product", how AI can be used to delight and empower customers, and what the future of hyper-personalized services looks like.Meanwhile, Alex Mead, a no-nonsense customer service experience strategist, passionately critiques the over-hyped CX buzzwords and defends the vital role of customer service leadership in delivering real, contextual help — not just brand polish.

In this special highlights episode, we bring together the sharpest takes from two of our most insightful guests: David Edelman and Alex Mead. Together, they explore the evolving landscape of customer experience, personalization, and the rise of AI in service delivery — but from two very different angles.David Edelman, former CMO at Aetna and a pioneer in customer-centric digital transformation, shares why "customer experience is the product", how AI can be used to delight and empower customers, and what the future of hyper-personalized services looks like.Meanwhile, Alex Mead, a no-nonsense customer service experience strategist, passionately critiques the over-hyped CX buzzwords and defends the vital role of customer service leadership in delivering real, contextual help — not just brand polish.

Is “surprise and delight” really the secret to customer loyalty, or is reliability your real superpower? In this episode, we challenge one of CX's biggest myths: that delight always wins.Many brands, especially in B2B, utilities, or financial services, build trust not through flashy moments but through consistent, dependable service. We explore how neglected touchpoints, like billing or scheduling, can become powerful moments of emotional connection when approached with a bit of personality and care.You'll also learn how to build an “emotional bank account” that pays off during service hiccups, and why small, intentional improvements can be more impactful than chasing viral wow moments. Think TSA's surprisingly fun social media presence as inspiration.Tune in to rethink what really drives customer trust—and how your brand can strike the right balance between consistency and creativity.Resources Mentioned:Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.comWhat Are Micromoments & Why Are They So Important? -- https://experienceinvestigators.com/customer-journey-maps/tedx-jeannie-walters/Download the free CX Mission Statement Workbook -- https://bit.ly/cx-mission-workbookWant to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie on LinkedIn! www.linkedin.com/in/jeanniewalters/)

Today on the Scoop, the team from Tapod are back in Oz… Well, Lauren is… while Craig is swanning it up in Malaysia, but we still manage to bring you all of the weekly TA & Recruitment News, including… AI driven job cuts, boom goes BHP, job ads rebound, sick pay piss-taking, Gen Z needs etiquette training, and much more. Thanks to Indeed for your ongoing support. 

Hosts Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham continue their discussion with Mitchell Flinn, VP of Program Management for the CSS Platform, by exploring how Oracle Cloud Success Navigator helps teams align faster, reduce risk, and drive value.   Learn how built-in quality benchmarks, modern best practices, and Starter Configuration tools accelerate cloud adoption, and explore ways to stay ahead with a mindset of continuous innovation.   Oracle Cloud Success Navigator Essentials: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-cloud-success-navigator-essentials/147489/242186 Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu   Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started! 00:25 Lois: Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs with Oracle University and with joining me today is Nikita Abraham, Team Lead of Editorial Services.  Nikita: Hi everyone! In our last episode, we gave you a broad overview of the Oracle Cloud Success Navigator platform—what it is, how it works, and its key features and benefits. Today, we're continuing that discussion with Mitchell Flinn. Mitchell is VP of Program Management for Oracle Cloud Success Navigator, and in this episode, we're going to ask him to walk us through some of the core components of the platform that we couldn't get into last week. 01:04 Lois: Right, Niki. Hi Mitchell! You spoke a little about Cloud Quality Standards in our last episode. But how do they contribute or align with the vision of Oracle Cloud Success Navigator?  Mitchell: The vision for Navigator is to support customers throughout every phase of their cloud journey, providing timely advice to help improve outcomes to reduce cost and increase overall value. This model is driven through Oracle Cloud Quality Standards. These standards are intended to improve the transparency and collaboration between customer, partner, and Oracle members of a project. This is a project blueprint to include the ability for business and IT users to align on project coordination, expectations, and ultimately drive tighter alignment. Tracking key milestones and activities can help visualize and measure progress. You can build assessments and help answer questions so that at the right time, you have the right resources to make the right decisions for an organization. Cloud Quality Standards represent the key milestone dates and accomplishments along the journey. You can leverage these to increase project transparency, reduce risk, and increase the overall collaboration. Cloud Quality Standards are proactive list of must haves leveraged by customers, partners, and Oracle. They're a collection of knowledge and lessons learned from thousands of implementations globally. Cloud Quality Standards are partner agnostic and complimentary to all SI methodologies and tool sets. And they've been identified to address delivery issues before they happen and reduce the risk of implementations. 02:34 Lois: Ok, and a crucial component of Oracle Cloud Success Navigator is Oracle Modern Best Practice, or OMBP, right? Can you tell us more about what this is?  Mitchell: Oracle Modern Best Practices are based on distilled knowledge of our customers' needs gained from 10,000 successful delivery projects. They illustrate the business process components and their optimization to take advantage of the latest Oracle applications and technologies. Oracle Modern Best Practices comprise industry best practices and processes powered by Oracle technology. Engineered in Fusion Applications, OMBPs simplify and streamline workflows. They enable organizations to leverage modern, efficient, and scalable practices. As we align our assets with OMBPs, there's a stronger connection between global process owners and business process innovation within a customer's organization. 03:21 Nikita: And how do they help deliver end-to-end success for businesses?  Mitchell: An OMBP approach involves a digital business process, so evolving and adapting in real time to changing market dynamics. End-to-end across the organization, so we're breaking down silos and ensuring there's operational agility and a seamless collaboration between departments. We're leveraging emerging technologies, so utilizing AI, other cutting-edge technologies to automate routine tasks, enabling greater human creativity and unlocking new value and insights. And radically superior results, driving a significant improvement in measurable outcomes. OMBPs are dynamic, and when regularly updated, they meet evolving customer needs and technologies. They're trusted, tested, and validated by Oracle experts and publicly available and download on oracle.com. If you go to oracle.com and search modern best practice, you'll find more detailed introduction to Oracle Modern Best Practices. You'll also find Oracle Modern Best Practice business processes for domains such as ERP, EPM, Supply Chain, HCM, and Customer  Experience. We also have Oracle Modern Best Practices for specific industries. 04:25 Nikita: What are the key benefits of OMBP? Mitchell: Revolutionary new technologies are available for organizations and business leaders. You might wonder how existing business processes are optimized with old technology and how they can drive the best solution. With more emerging technologies reaching commercial availability, existing best practices become outdated. And to stay competitive, organizations need to continuously innovate and incorporate new technology within their best practices. In Oracle's definition of OMBPs, common business processes are considered historic input, but we also factor in what could be done with new technologies. And based on this approach, Oracle Modern Best Practices help us evolve with the organizational needs as market dynamics change, work end to end across organizations to eliminate department silos and ensure agility. It allows us to use technologies such as AI to automate the mundane and unlock human creativity for new value and insight. This allows us to incorporate next generation digital technologies to enable radically superior, measurable results. To achieve these, Oracle makes use of key differentiators such as analytics and AI and machine learning. Analytics are also known as business intelligence provides you with information in the form of pre-built dashboards, showing your key metrics in real time. Embedded analytic capabilities enable you to monitor business performance and make better decisions. 05:44 Lois: And what about AI and machine learning? Mitchell: These focus on building systems that learn or improve performance based on the data that they consume. Smart digital assistants, recommendation engines, predictive analytics, they're all used within AI and machine learning to help organizations automate operations and drive innovation, and ultimately make better decisions faster. 06:02 Nikita: Mitchell, let's move on to the Starter Configuration. Can you explain what it is and how it helps during a cloud implementation? Mitchell: Starter Configuration is a predefined configuration of Oracle Cloud Applications aligned with the Oracle Modern Best Practices. It's very comprehensive and includes business processes in several domains, such as ERP, HCM, Supply Chain, EPM, and so on. It includes sample, master, and transactional data, and predetermined usernames, which aligns and tests based on the same use cases you saw in Oracle Modern Best Practices in Cloud Success Navigator. Customers can request deployment of a Starter Configuration into their test environment. Oracle will run an automated process for replicating the configuration, master data, transaction data, and predetermined usernames from Oracle to the Oracle Cloud Applications Test Environment of the customer's choice. For best user experience, customers can add a basic level of personalization, such as their customer name, limited number of employees, suppliers, customers, and a few other items. Starter Configuration's delivered with predetermined step guides for comprehensive set of use cases. Using these, customers can relay the same use cases they've seen in Oracle Modern Best Practices and Success Navigator. In the Oracle Cloud Applications Test Environment Customer, we've been able to enable an in-app guidance using Oracle Guided Learning. This helps to make it easier for navigation through the business processes supported by the application. Oracle can deploy the Starter Configuration in days, not weeks or months, which means the implementation partners don't need to invest time and effort for the first configuration of an Oracle Cloud Application environment before they can even get the chance to show it to a customer. In turn, once Starter Configuration is deployed, it's ready to be used for solution familiarization and design activities. Using Starter Configuration of Oracle Cloud Applications early in the cloud journey will offer several benefits to customers. 08:00 Lois: What are these benefits? Mitchell: The first, it helps to cut down on environment configuration time from several weeks or months to potentially just days. Next, implementation partners can engage stakeholders early, and get them familiar with Oracle Cloud Applications, especially those that maybe have never participated in the sales cycle. Because customer stakeholders actually see what Oracle Cloud solutions might look like in the future, it becomes easier to take design decisions. Starter Configuration provides hands-on familiarization with Oracle Cloud Applications and Oracle Leading Practices. This makes it easier to understand what leading practices and standard features can be adopted to support future business processes. It also reduces the level of customization and accelerates implementation. 08:45 Transform the way you work with Oracle Database 23ai! This cutting-edge technology brings the power of AI directly to your data, making it easier to build powerful applications and manage critical workloads. Want to learn more about Database 23ai? Visit mylearn.oracle.com to pick from our range of courses and enroll today!   09:10 Nikita: Welcome back! Mitchell, how can customers and implementation partners best use the Starter Configuration?  Mitchell: Customers and implementation partners will work in close collaboration to make the implementation successful. Hence, Oracle recommends that customers and implementation partner discuss how the best use of Starter Configuration will take place. This is one of the key activities in the mobilize stage of the cloud journey. First, Oracle recommends to use Starter Configuration to prepare the customer stakeholders for the project. Customer stakeholders who participate in the project should go to the Oracle Modern Best Practice section of Success Navigator platform in order to learn more about the modern best practices, business processes, personas, leading practices, and use cases. Project team can request Starter Configuration early in the project to allow customer stakeholders to get their hands-on experience with performing use cases in the Starter Configuration. Customer stakeholders will perform use cases in Starter Config to learn more about modern best practices. They'll use the step-by-step guides and Guided Learning to easily perform the use cases within the Starter Configuration. This is how they'll visualize use cases in Oracle Cloud Applications and get a good understanding of Oracle Modern Best Practices. Next, mobilize stage of the journey, project team can use Starter Configuration to visualize the solution and make design decisions with confidence. First, by requesting Starter Configuration, implementation partners can engage stakeholders early and create the space to get familiar with Oracle Applications. This applies especially to those that may have not participated during the sales cycle. You could personalize Starter Configuration to enhance the user experience to help the customer connect to the application and, for example, change the company name, the logo, few supplier names, customer names, employee names, etc. And implementation partners are going to be able to run sessions to familiarize the customer with modern best practices and show how cloud applications support use cases. For structured guidance, the implementation partners can use the step guides. It includes screenshots of OGL within cloud applications environments. And you could run design workshop and use Starter Configuration, show and explain which design decisions must take place to define a customer-centric configuration. Finally, you can show use cases that help you explain what the impact of design decisions might be. 11:20 Lois: Mitchell, before we wrap up, can you take us through how the Release Readiness features facilitate innovation?  Mitchell: In order to innovate with the Release Readiness features, it's important to learn about the new features in a one-stop shop, and then connect with the capability. The first item is to be able to find and familiarize yourself with the content as they exist within Release Notes. From there, it's important to be able to actually experience those items by looking at the text, and pictures, and the Oracle University videos that we provide in the Feature Overviews, as well as additional capabilities that will be coming with the Navigator in the preview environment, your ability to get your hands on in a demo experience through Cloud Success Navigator. Furthermore, it's important for you to be able to explore across theme-based items, which we call Adoption Centers, currently ready for AI in Redwood. This gives you the ability to span across Release Notes and different releases in order to understand the themes of the trends around AI and Redwood, and how those capabilities in our technology can advance your innovation in the Cloud. And finally, you need to be able to understand those opportunities based off of business processes, data insights, and industry benchmarks. That way, you can understand the capabilities as they exist, not just for your business specifically, but in the context of the broader industry and technology trends. From there, it's important for you to then think about your ability to collaborate to drive continuous innovation. We want to be able to leverage Cloud Success Navigator to drive collaboration to increase confidence across all members of the project team, whether it be you as a customer, our partners, or the Oracle team. It should also be able to drive an increased efficiency within decision making, driving greater value and readiness as you think about the proposed adoption changes. Finally, we want to think about the ability to reduce cycles related to features and decisions so that you can more quickly adapt, and adjust, and consume innovations as they're produced on a quarterly basis.  13:09 Nikita: I think we can end with that. Thank you so much, Mitchell, for taking us through the Navigator platform. Lois: And if you liked what you heard today, head over to mylearn.oracle.com and take a look at the Oracle Cloud Success Navigator Essentials course to learn more. It's available for free! Until next time, this is Lois Houston…. Nikita: And Nikita Abraham, signing off! 13:33 That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.  

Episode 250: Comcast solved the age-old problem of how to make employee suggestions a powerful, reliable source of value-driving improvements at scale.   Sean McEntire, Comcast's Vice President of Customer Strategy and Operations, explains how the Outer Loop channels every employee elevation—no matter how small—through a disciplined screen, assigns a named owner, and tracks progress in public view. Ninety thousand teammates now feed a single pipeline that forces scattered ideas into accountable hands and verified fixes, solving 7,000 customer pain points so far. A frontline agent's push for an easy‑to‑use, large‑button remote shows the system at work: The idea passed triage in hours, landed on the product team's desk, and shipped nationwide within months—evidence that voices on the floor can reshape the hardware in customers' hands. Once an elevation clears triage, technology, operations, or product leads must respond within set deadlines—accept, reject, or ask for data. Every decision and follow‑up lives on the same dashboard employees use to log ideas, so trust grows with each visible step. As McEntire puts it, “CX is all about transparency. If you're going to be transparent with your customer, you need to be transparent with your teammates.” The result? Faster fixes, rising JD Power and NPS Prism rankings, and a workforce that, 10 years into the transformation, keeps feeding the Outer Loop because they've seen their suggestions become reality. Guest: Sean McEntire, Vice President, Customer Strategy and Operations, Comcast Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: Help us improve the podcast (feedback link) Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey. Time-Stamped Topics (00:01) Comcast's early days of the Outer Loop (03:00) Why NPS never drifts when the Outer Loop is active (06:00) What it takes to operationalize trust with 90,000 employees (08:30) Large-button remotes and other frontline-sourced Outer Loop ideas (11:00) Inside the elevation system: votes, comments, and Outer Loop visibility (13:00) Why rejecting ideas can build more trust than accepting them (16:00) An industry-wide trust gap and the Outer Loop's role in closing it (18:00) Moving beyond scores to what drives CX progress (20:00) Synthetic feedback, benchmarking, and the new Outer Loop data stack Time-Stamped Notable Quotes  [3:00] “This is our ten-year anniversary of operationalizing NPS within the organization. And we consistently, to this day, listen to both our customers and teammates. We learn from that feedback. […] We act on putting new solutions into the business that improve the lives of our customers and our teammates.” [5:00] “We are approaching our 7,000th resolved NPS elevation. So that's 7,000 net new experiences for both our consumers and teammates. And that's true progress.” [12:00]  “CX is all about transparency. So, if you're going to be transparent with your customer, you need to be transparent with your teammate.” [16:00] “CX never sleeps.” [23:00] “ It's not the score, it's the system. And if people focus on the score, you spend more time trying to explain a few basis points of score change and trying to correlate what may have caused that when it may have nothing to do with that. So it's, the score will be your north star on, ‘Are you making progress?'” Additional Resources Learn more about the NPS® Outer Loop by Bain & Company: https://www.qualtrics.com/marketplace/bain-outerloop/ Listen to our two-part 2018 podcast on the origin of Comcast's NPS journey with Charlie Herrin, Comcast's chief customer experience officer: https://www.netpromotersystem.com/insights/inside-a-cable-giants-net-promoter-turnaround-nps-podcast/ 

In this episode of the CX Tipping Point Podcast, Martha Dorris sits down with James McCament, Chief Digital Transformation Officer, and Janet Pence, Customer Experience Lead at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), to explore how CBP is transforming its service delivery, operations, and customer experience through innovation and technology.Fresh off being named the 2025 Service to the Citizen Government Executive of the Year, James shares insights into CBP's complex mission, from border security and trade facilitation to counterterrorism, and how digital transformation and AI are playing a critical role. Janet adds her perspective from decades of experience at CBP, including leading customer experience and trade support efforts.Together, they discuss:CBP's Experience Office and human-centered service modelAutomation that cut 3+ million customer burden hours in FY2024AI-driven tools that detect contraband and speed up processingSuccession planning and upskilling across CBP's vast workforceStrong cross-agency partnerships, including with the FDAPublic reaction insights and the future of digital governmentThis episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the country—and how it's innovating for a safer, smarter, and more customer-focused future.Thank you for listening to this episode of The CX Tipping Point Podcast! If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing, rating, and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your support helps us reach more listeners! Stay Connected: Follow us on social media: LinkedIn: @DorrisConsultingInternational Twitter: @DorrisConsultng Facebook: @DCInternational Resources Mentioned: Citizen Services Newsletter 2024 Service to the Citizen Awards Nomination Form

On our latest episode of The Future of the Firm podcast, Ben Tye, CEO of Gate One Consulting, caught up with Emma Carroll, Head of Content at Source, to discuss what clients want from growth and CX work today.  Ben shared his insights on the following matters and more:    While clients rarely begin by stating "we need to grow our business", this desire for growth is behind many of the challenges they raise, such as CRM system issues or new product launch hurdles. It is therefore crucial for consultants to link these discrete problems back to the ultimate business outcome of driving growth in order to tailor the services firms offer.  While traditional buyers like COOs, CTOs, CPOs, CFOs, chief digital & information officers, and chief transformation officers still buy services, consultants need to be careful not to assume these roles are buying the same services as they were historically. For instance, a chief people officer might now be more interested in technology and data insights. This leads to more cross-functional buying, plus two or three buyers may be involved, rather than a single sponsor, making the sales process more complex. Clients want support around the technological, operational, and data aspects of AI.   The need for ethical and responsible AI use is increasingly important to clients and is also driving consulting demand. Where AI-driven decisions influence customer experience or service delivery getting those right is particularly critical.  Clients are actively identifying and developing a backlog of AI use cases. Firms can help them manage these as a portfolio, using clear decision criteria to quickly determine if a proof of concept is viable. Interestingly, "edge cases" from this portfolio, rather than the immediately obvious ones, often prove to be the most impactful.    If you enjoyed this conversation, don't miss our sister podcast, Business Leader's Voice. In a recent episode, we talked to Andrew Brothers, former Chief Information Officer at Primark, about targeting tech investment as a CIO. 

This week on Tapod we sit down with Yvonne Kelly – CEO at Glow Up Careers. Imagine being in a country where the language is different, the culture is different, and the recruitment process is different… Then imagine attempting to get a job. In this episode we explore the challenges of the migrant and refugee population and how you can give back… as a coach. Thanks to Greenhouse for your support this month. 

Further on Mazda’s long standing CX-5 SUV but still highly competitive with tenmodels in a mix of petrol and diesel and front or all-wheel drive, I’m driving thesecond tier 2.5-litre six-speed automatic CX-5 Maxx Sport front wheel drive at$43,184 drive-away with optional metallic paint. I covered nearly 900km with a lotof highway cruising at the open road limit. The naturally aspirated four-cylinderwith 140kW and 252Nm of torque did a workmanlike job but what surprised wasthe economy, averaging 7.4L/100km on 91 grade petrol with four passengers.This is simply a great allrounder, well shod 17-inch alloy wheels provide a verycomfortable ride while the electric power assistance offers good feel whilstparking and on the run. Comfort and convenience items include dual zone climatecontrol, satellite navigation, a head-up instrument display, well bolstered clothseats, a rear-view camera, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto plus a good level ofactive safety elements. Thankfully the warning elements are not intrusive likemany of the new breed of Chinese SUV’s. Disappointments – no wireless phonecharger and the lack of a power rear door. However, the Mazda CX-5 is still upthere as one of our best mid-size SUV’s.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Driving the popular Mazda CX-5 SUV today, Mazda’s top seller, it’s been around along time in ten models, a mix of petrol and diesel and front or all-wheel drive. Nohybrid but I’m told its coming. I drove the second tier 2.5-litre six-speed automaticCX-5 Maxx Sport front wheel drive - $43,184 drive-away, which included optionalSoul Red Chrystal Metallic paint at $795. A colour that has in many ways becomea trademark of Mazda. The CX-5 a good looker, still our fourth best-sellingmedium SUV, behind Toyota’s RAV4 and getting some strong competition thesedays from Kia’s Sportage and Hyundai’s Tuscon. I did nearly 900km in urban andcountry driving and it really surprised - well sorted, extremely comfortable forfour adults – the Maxx Sport well specified apart from the lack of wireless phonecharging and a power rear door. But it has dual zone air-conditioning with rearoutlets, a welcome head up display, a rather small 8-inch display screen on thedash but just so safe to use with a rotary dialer to let you scroll through a menu –so much safer than many of the new Chinese SUV’s with their large touchscreensand no active buttons. Warranty 5-years/unlimited km.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Does your brand deliver answers faster than your customer can send a text message? Agility in CX is about answering customers before they finish the thought. If you can't evolve at that pace, you're already behind. Today we're going to talk about what Verint's brand‑new 2025 State of Customer Experience report tells us about loyalty, automation, and the thin line between keeping and losing a customer. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Anna Convery, Chief Marketing Officer at Verint. About Anna Convery Anna Convery serves as Chief Marketing Officer of Verint. Anna joined Verint in March 2025 with more than 20 years of experience in enterprise technology marketing, product management, and sales. Anna has global responsibility for all Verint marketing functions, with a focus on market growth, industry positioning, and revenue generation. She is a recognized advocate for STEM education and professional development for women and girls. Resources Verint: https://www.verint.com https://www.verint.com This episode is brought to you by Verint, a leader in customer experience automation. The world's most iconic brands – including more than 80 of the Fortune 100 companies – rely on Verint AI technology for customer care. Learn more here: https://www.verint.com Catch the future of e-commerce at eTail Boston, August 11-14, 2025. Register now: https://bit.ly/etailboston and use code PARTNER20 for 20% off for retailers and brandsDon't Miss MAICON 2025, October 14-16 in Cleveland - the event bringing together the brights minds and leading voices in AI. Use Code AGILE150 for $150 off registration. Go here to register: https://bit.ly/agile150" Get a copy of the Verint State of CX Report: https://www.verint.com/resources/the-state-of-customer-experience-2025/ Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.showCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company

In this episode of Automox Insiders, host Maddie Regis sits down with Kat Breeggemann, Digital Customer Experience Manager at Automox, to explore her unique journey from journalism and communications into the world of customer success. Kat shares how a leap-of-faith internship opened the door to a career in CX, the pivotal moment she advocated for her own role, and why scaling digital experiences is the key to supporting thousands of end users effectively.You'll learn:What digital CX looks like in actionHow to transition your skillset into techThe importance of proactive, scalable customer educationWhy assuming user knowledge can break your product experienceCareer advice for new grads and professionals making a switchWhether you're navigating your own tech career or building better customer journeys, this episode is full of practical insight and inspiring takeaways.

Thomas Oronti is the CEO at Advensus. He is based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The CX Files has explored many different nearshore options in the Caribbean region, but has never explored the Dominican Republic before and yet this location has the advantage of being able to easily offer customer support in English, Spanish, and French - thanks to Haiti also sharing the island of Hispaniola. https://maps.app.goo.gl/wgpE2LoSLp9tu6TX6 Peter Ryan talked to Thomas about the growing importance of the DR in the nearshore CX and BPO sector and how Advensus strongly focuses on the role of the agent in any CX strategy. https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-oronti-67777a12/ https://advensus.com/   SUMMARY: Mark Hillary and Peter Ryan discuss the Dominican Republic's growing importance in the BPO and CX sectors. Thomas Oronti, CEO of Advensus, highlights the DR's unique trilingual labor pool, strong English proficiency, and robust connectivity. Advensus has grown from 100 to over 5,500 seats in 19 years, offering services like translation, collections, and customer service. The DR's stability, political reliability, and cost-effectiveness make it a premier nearshore destination. Oronti emphasizes the need for better English training programs and the potential for servicing Spanish, French, and English markets. The DR's success is attributed to its flexible workforce and strategic location.

The CX Goalkeeper Podcast joins the Customer Experience World Games 2025.With the incredible honor of interviewing captains, vice-captains, judges, and friends of the CXWG 2025.These are brief interviews that share the experiences of outstanding individuals who help charities improve.Customer Experience professionals worldwide come together to share their experience insights and help others.The CX World Games take place over 4-6 weeks, with expert CX captains guiding randomly created teams to work on the best solutions to challenges set by the organizers. Players contribute whatever time they have. It only takes a minute to come up with a brilliant idea.These challenges are real-life, proposed by charities and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that need help to improve their donor, volunteer, or beneficiary experiences.​All the entries are provided to the charities that will go on to make a difference from what the teams provide during the CXWG.Join us and be part of it.​

How do you lead organizational transformation when AI is moving faster than your roadmap can keep up?   Carlie Bissler, a product leader at McKesson, breaks down what it takes to guide large enterprises through change in the age of AI. From building trust and authenticity as a leader to shifting from "change management" to "change leadership," Carlie shares pragmatic advice for preparing your teams — and yourself — for the unknown.   She also gets real about fear in the workplace, the shame some still feel about using AI tools, and why the best CX transformations start on the inside. If you're navigating the messy middle of enterprise innovation, this episode is your blueprint for embracing agility, empowering your people, and staying human in an increasingly automated world. Key Moments:   00:00 Change Leadership, Innovation, and AI04:46 Who is Carlie Bislser of McKesson?06:13 The Role of Psychology in Leadership14:20 Navigating Organizational Transformation18:33 Embracing AI and Building Trust29:12 The Growing Fear of AI in the Workplace34:32 The Shift from AI as a Cost Center to an Asset38:03 Mentorship and Community43:13 Preparing for AI-Driven Transformation45:43 The Human Touch in Customer Experience50:57 Lightning Round: Quick Insights & Advice –Are your teams facing growing demands? Join CX leaders transforming their AI strategy with Agentforce. Start achieving your ambitious goals. Visit salesforce.com/agentforce Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org

How do you modernize customer experience in a legacy industry without losing the trust it was built on? That's the challenge Allison Landers, Chief Experience Officer of Banking and Lending at UBS, is solving every day. In this episode of The Modern Customer Podcast, Allison shares how UBS is scaling digital banking while preserving the high-touch service clients expect—and why CX is not just about delight. It's about protecting relationships and earning loyalty at every step. Inside the episode: Why UBS expanded into credit cards and mortgages How journey mapping helps fix what matters most What it takes to lead CX across legacy systems and siloed teams Why modern CX leaders must be relentless operators—not just visionaries This is a must-listen for CX leaders navigating complexity, scale, and rising expectations. Listen now! Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today's Customer. Follow Blake Morgan on LinkedIn For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. 

What's on your mind? Let CX Passport know... How do you get real business value from customer experience work?Dave Seaton is a journey mapping expert who doesn't stop at sticky notes and emotional arcs. He helps companies identify operational and financial wins from their CX initiatives…with one client achieving a 9X(!) ROI.In this episode, we talk about:How to tie journey mapping to real business impactWhy empathy is great, but outcomes matter moreWhat CX pros should do when leadership won't listenDave's practical take on metrics, personas, and strategyCX isn't fluff. Dave shows us how to make it count.CHAPTERS 0:00 Meet Dave Seaton 1:39 What “real CX work” looks like 4:00 Journey mapping that drives 9X ROI 7:00 Empathy vs. business outcomes 9:23 CX leaders as internal consultants 12:05 Fixing broken processes from journey maps 14:40 When the boss won't listen 16:53 First Class Lounge 19:28 From the military to CX 22:18 Where to connect with DaveGuest Links: 

When half a billion customers interact with your service each year, you gain rare insight into what truly drives—or destroys—customer loyalty. In this CX Pulse Check, Jeannie welcomes Marcus Story, Corporate Director of Customer Experience and Social Customer Care at Delaware North, for a candid conversation about the state of travel and hospitality during the busy summer season.They take a hard look at American Airlines' new customer experience advisory board—and the surprising lack of actual customers at the table. Marcus shares why involving real travelers is essential to driving meaningful change, especially as competitors like Delta and United prioritize more customer-focused strategies.The discussion also explores the evolving role of AI in hospitality. While automation and personalization technologies open new doors, Marcus and Jeannie stress that technology should complement—not replace—genuine human connections. Through personal stories, they highlight how small, thoughtful gestures can leave a lasting impact.Rounding out the episode, they examine United Airlines' new airport arrival policy and what it reveals about communication gaps and the overall customer journey. Whether you work in CX or simply love to travel, you'll walk away with fresh insights on balancing efficiency, innovation, and the timeless value of human touchpoints.About Marcus Story:Marcus brings nearly 20 years of experience managing and delivering exceptional customer and guest experiences across hospitality and service industries.Marcus, who has been a Delaware North team member for 13 years, is the leader of the company's global customer experience strategy and platform, called GuestPath®. Before Delaware North, Marcus honed his customer experience expertise at well-known organizations like Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and InterContinental Hotels Group.Aside from his direct experience, Marcus has earned certifications as a Certified Customer Experience Professional (via the Customer Experience Professionals Association) and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. He attended California State University, Sacramento, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies, and holds a Master of Science in Hospitality Management from California State University, Long Beach.Follow Marcus on...LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusstory/Articles Mentioned:- American Airlines names members of new Customer Experience Advisory Board (American Airlines Newsroom) -- https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2025/American-Airlines-names-members-of-new-Customer-Experience-Advisory-Board-MKG-OTH-06/default.aspx- How AI-powered CX strategies can better meet guest expectations (Hotel Dive) -- https://www.hoteldive.com/news/artificial-intelligence-cx-strategies-hotel-guest/749477/- United Passengers Are Required to Check In Earlier Starting June 3 (Condé Nast Traveler) -- https://www.cntraveler.com/story/united-airlines-check-in-time-changeResources Mentioned:Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.comWant to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie on LinkedIn! www.linkedin.com/in/jeanniewalters/)

In collaboration with CCW Europe Summit 2025:CCW Europe Summit 2025 unites CX pioneers to solve today's challenges and shape tomorrow's solutions. Dive into next-gen AI, journey redesign, and customer-centric growth with leaders from Google, Nestlé, Ryanair, and more.Spot are limited! Join the event join the movement:Use the discount code CXGOALKEEPER20 for 20% additional discount!.https://europe.customercontactweekdigital.com/events-ccweurope_Do you think personalization ends with using your name? Think again. In this episode, Dr. Emmanuel Manyonganise unveils the secrets of hyper-personalization in customer experience and how businesses can stay ahead by turning data and AI into powerful engagement tools. This is a must-listen for CX professionals aiming for true transformation.Follow Emmanuel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-emmanuel-manyonganiseThe Top 3 Key LearningsHyper-personalization goes beyond marketing. It must include support, problem resolution, and full journey engagement.A strong data culture is key. Centralized platforms, AI integration, and cross-departmental collaboration are crucial.Start small, but start now. Experimentation and a mindset of continuous learning are the fastest paths to progress.Chapters00:00 Introduction to CX Goalkeeper Podcast00:27 Upcoming CCW Europe Summit 202501:11 Guest Introduction: Emmanuel Man01:49 Evolving Personalization in Customer Experience02:19 Emmanuel's Career Journey and Values06:09 Understanding Basic Personalization09:48 Transitioning to Hyper-Personalization14:09 Examples of Successful Personalization17:50 Future Trends in Hyper-Personalization20:10 Advice for Leaders on Personalization21:16 Conclusion and Final ThoughtsKeywords: customer experience, CX, personalization, hyper-personalization, AI in CX, data culture, customer data platform, CX leadership, CX strategy, digital transformation, Emmanuel Manyonganise, CX podcast, customer journey, personalization in banking, CX trends 2025, CX Goalkeeper, Gregorio UglioniFollow & Subscribe to the CX Goalkeeper Podcast: Podcast Page: https://www.cxgoalkeeper.com/Podcast Apple Podcast: http://cxgoalkeeper.com/apple Spotify: http://cxgoalkeeper.com/spotify We'd love to hear your thoughts — leave a comment or share your feedback!

PANEL: In Face of Stagnating Favorability Ratings, What's Next for South African Offshore CX? When Ryan Strategic Advisory published the most favorable offshore location study last May, South Africa had dropped to third position, compared to more recently topping the poll. This survey features feedback from over 800 CX decision-makers and is potentially the largest survey that explores where CX leaders will consider operations. https://ryanadvisory.com/india-is-the-most-favored-offshore-cx-delivery-point-in-2025/ India and the Philippines are now the most popular destinations, but have these giant destinations just reasserted their postiion or is something going wrong in South Africa? South Africa is still in the top three destinations, but is this slip from the top position a significant change or a blip? Peter Ryan called together a group of three experts to talk about the change in favorability and what is next for BPO and CX in South Africa...   Lian Rowlands Owner and Principal Consultant at Tayma Solutions Liverpool, UK https://www.linkedin.com/in/lian-rowlands-a26119/   Steve Weston Founder  of ApexCX Baltimore, MD, USA https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-weston-1843152/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/apexcx-customer-experience-support-services/   Mark Essey CEO Custom Connect South Africa Durban, South Africa https://www.linkedin.com/in/markessey/ https://www.customconnect.com/   Summary: In the CX Files podcast episode from July 3, 2025, hosts Mark Hillary and Peter Ryan discuss the recent Ryan Strategic Advisory survey on CX technology and global services, which ranked offshore destinations for favorability. India ranked first, the Philippines second, and South Africa tied for third with Poland. The conversation features experts Lian Rowlands, Steve Weston, and Mark Essey, who discuss South Africa's decline in favorability rankings despite maintaining a strong delivery system. They highlight the need for South Africa to reinvent its value proposition, focusing on data security, compliance, and advanced technology to regain its top position. The discussion emphasizes the importance of government support, industry cooperation, and forward-thinking strategies to enhance South Africa's BPO sector.

With all of the emphasis lately on developing digital experiences, it's often overlooked that the customer experience transcends online and offline touchpoints. In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith discuss the concept of a hybrid CX approach, integrating offline and online experiences, and the role AI has in supporting the new customer journey. Ian Lindsey from Cerecore joins to discuss the important role the call center agent has in improving the overall PX. Mentions from the Show: Younger Generations are Feeling FatigueHybrid CX: Integrating Offline and Online Experiences SeamlesslyBowstring.tv Customer Experience in the Age of AI CereCore brings a healthcare operator heritage to IT services, serving healthcare organizations across the nation and abroad. Learn more at cerecore.net ebook Diagnosing Your Health System's IT Support Desk - explaining how to use service level metrics to uncover hidden costs, increase user satisfaction and efficiency Cerecore support assessment (at no cost and no commitment) to discover where to begin gaining greater efficiency in IT support Ian Lindsey on LinkedIn Reed Smith on LinkedIn Chris Boyer on LinkedIn Chris Boyer website Chris Boyer on BlueSky Reed Smith on BlueSky Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just promoted to executive director of Salesforce AppExchange, the online marketplace, Brian Landsman joins Craig and James to talk about the various partner opportunities with the CRM giant. We get the latest on Agentforce, how Salesforce navigates its hyperscaler relationships and why it significantly values it partnerships with CX vendors.

In this episode of Level Up CX Tech, we talk with Brent Baker, Vice President and Chief Customer & Innovation Officer at Nashville Electric, about their journey to the cloud, the challenges they faced along the way, and how a cloud-based CX platform is helping Nashville Electric deliver a better customer and employee experience. 

Send us a textBlending IT Service Management (ITSM) with Customer Experience (CX) might raise eyebrows—kind of like pineapple on pizza—but for some businesses, it's the perfect combo. In industries where support teams double as customer-facing heroes, separating internal service workflows from external customer engagement creates more chaos than clarity. That's where platforms like Freshsales come into play, aiming to bridge that gap by unifying data, aligning teams, and simplifying service delivery. But as the lines blur between ITSM and CX, the real question becomes: can Freshsales truly deliver on both fronts—and how does it compare to rivals who specialize in just one side of the equation?In today's episode, we invited a panel of industry experts for a live discussion on LinkedIn to conduct an independent review of Freshsales' capabilities. We covered many grounds, including where Freshsales might be a fit in the enterprise architecture and where it might be overused. Finally, they analyze many data points to help understand the core strengths and weaknesses of Freshsales.Background Soundtrack: Away From You – Mauro SommFor more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs.rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform.

Canva has over 230 million users. Their AI features? Used more than 16 billion times in the past year. So how does a company at that scale keep customer experience simple, human, and aligned? I sat down with Rob Gilio, Chief Customer Officer at Canva, to unpack how they're scaling CX, sales, and support—without losing their design-driven soul. We talked about: The “bow tie” framework Canva uses to align teams across the full journey Why background remover became their most-used AI feature—and how business users deploy it at scale How Canva blends product-led growth with real human support across global teams Why CXOs must own post-purchase if they want to unlock enterprise value If you're rethinking how to scale CX with AI, data, and design in a high-growth business—this one's for you.

What's on your mind? Let CX Passport know...How do Agile principles, customer experience, and camper life all fit together? Lauren Feehrer connects those dots brilliantly in this *Greatest Hits* episode of CX Passport.Lauren is the founder of LoyaltyCraft, where she helps mid-market companies grow through smarter customer experience strategies. From her roots as a process analyst at Accenture to helping clients implement Agile CX frameworks today, Lauren brings a balance of structure and empathy to the CX world.This episode originally aired as E182 and stood out not just for Lauren's insights but for her authenticity — whether talking about CX in hospice care or running her family like a Scrum team (yes, really).Lauren blends CX discipline with curiosity and care — and it's no surprise this episode made the Greatest Hits list.CHAPTERS  00:00  Starting at Accenture...and blue screens  04:58  Listening deeply to customers  07:49  Agile CX explained  11:46  The business of grief and caregiving  15:34  Family road trips during the pandemic  18:41  First Class Lounge  23:41  Discipline, emotion, and process  26:54  Her grandfather's CX inspiration  29:11  Using Agile with your familyEpisode resources:  Connect with Lauren Feehrer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenfeehrer  Learn more about LoyaltyCraft: https://www.loyaltycraft.comIf you like CX Passport, I have 3 quick requests:✅ Subscribe to the CX Passport YouTube channel https://youtube.com/@cxpassport  ✅ Join other “CX travelers” with the weekly CX Passport newsletter https://cxpassport.kit.com/signup  ✅ Bring

Mati Staniszewski, co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs, explains how staying laser-focused on audio innovation has allowed his company to thrive despite the push into multimodality from foundation models. From a high school friendship in Poland to building one of the fastest-growing AI companies, Mati shares how ElevenLabs transformed text-to-speech with contextual understanding and emotional delivery. He discusses the company's viral moments (from Harry Potter by Balenciaga to powering Darth Vader in Fortnite), and explains how ElevenLabs is creating the infrastructure for voice agents and real-time translation that could eliminate language barriers worldwide. Hosted by: Pat Grady, Sequoia Capital Mentioned in this episode: Attention Is All You Need: The original Transformers paper Tortoise-tts: Open source text to speech model that was a starting point for ElevenLabs (which now maintains a v2) Harry Potter by Balenciaga: ElevenLabs' first big viral moment from 2023 The first AI that can laugh: 2022 blog post backing up ElevenLab's claim of laughter (it got better in v3) Darth Vader's voice in Fortnite: ElevenLabs used actual voice clips provided by James Earl Jones before he died Lex Fridman interviews Prime Minister Modi: ElevenLabs enabled Fridman to speak in Hindi and Modi to speak in English. Time Person of the Year 2024: ElevenLabs-powered experiment with “conversational journalism” Iconic Voices: Richard Feynman, Deepak Chopra, Maya Angelou and more available in ElevenLabs reader app SIP trunking: a method of delivering voice, video, and other unified communications over the internet using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Genesys: Leading enterprise CX platform for agentic AI Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Comedy/science-fiction series by Douglas Adams that contains the concept of the Babel Fish instantaneous translator, cited by Mati FYI: communication and productivity app for creatives that Mati uses, founded by will.i.am Lovable: prototyping app that Mati loves

In this episode of No Brainer, Greg Verdino and Geoff Livingston host Carson Hostetter, EVP & General Manager, AI and CX Solutions at RingCentral to discuss the evolution of AI in customer service. The company just launched AIR, short for AI Receptionist. AIR is a call center agent that intersects using audio technology. They dive into how AI agents like RingCentral's AIR are transforming the way businesses handle customer interactions, ensuring seamless, 24/7 service. Voice becomes a primary discussion point as the three debate the merits of voice as the primary human interface over text. Carson provides valuable insights into the importance of combining AI with human agents for optimal customer satisfaction, data security practices, and the future trajectory of AI in business communications. Chapters 00:00 Intro 02:43 The Role of AI in Customer Communications 12:34 Understanding AIR: AI Receptionist 17:55 AI and Voice: The Future 35:42 Closing Thoughts and Future of AI This episode was sponsored by RingCentral. About Carson Hostetter Carson Hostetter is EVP & General Manager, AI and CX Solutions at RingCentral, where he is responsible for developing and implementing the company's AI and CX strategy. He brings over 25 years of industry experience to this newly created role, focusing on delivering tangible ROI for customers. Connect with Carson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carsonhostetter/ About RingCentral RingCentral is a leading provider of cloud-based business communications and collaboration solutions. Its platform combines messaging, video, phone, and contact center services, enabling organizations to connect and work from anywhere. Trusted by businesses worldwide, RingCentral helps teams stay productive, responsive, and secure in today's hybrid work environment. To learn more about RingCentral AIR visit: https://www.ringcentral.com/air?BMID=CMRCAIRINMNB2025 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does your AI-based interface talk to customers the way a real person would or is it tech for tech's sake? We are here at Forrester CX in Nashville, TN and hearing all about the latest insights and ideas for brands to create better experiences for their customers. Agility is less about bolting on new features just because the tech is available and more about making tomorrow's experiences feel intuitive and natural to the end customer using them. Today we're diving into designing for the future of experiences with AJ Joplin, Senior Analyst at Forrester. About AJ Joplin AJ is the lead analyst for Forrester's research on experience design (XD), design organizations, and design leadership. Helping XD and customer experience (CX) leaders develop and deliver on research-based strategy is AJ's professional passion. She has observed that the most effective organizations combine clear purpose with the right people and leverage systems to clarify decision-making, prioritization, and workflows. AJ also has years of workshop facilitation experience in human-centered design and design thinking. Using her professional coaching skills, AJ bring clients through ambiguity and into alignment on what matters and what's next. Resources Forrester: https://www.forrester.com https://www.forrester.com Catch the future of e-commerce at eTail Boston, August 11-14, 2025. Register now: https://bit.ly/etailboston and use code PARTNER20 for 20% off for retailers and brandsDon't Miss MAICON 2025, October 14-16 in Cleveland - the event bringing together the brights minds and leading voices in AI. Use Code AGILE150 for $150 off registration. Go here to register: https://bit.ly/agile150" Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.show Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company

In this episode of Reimagining the Contact Center, Marc Bernstein sits down with customer experience legend Shep Hyken to unpack the evolving relationship between AI and human empathy in customer service.Together, they dive into: the rise of self-service everything, the danger of “artificial incompetence," why empathy still matters—even in a world ruled by bots, the tension between customer convenience and human connection, what a no-human future might mean for loyalty, trust, and brand memory.Whether you're building an AI roadmap or just trying to keep your CX human, this episode will challenge your assumptions and sharpen your strategy.Timestamps:00:00 Introduction01:33 AI for Consumers15:25 Human Empathy17:35 Artificial Incompetence22:40 A Future With No Humans33:04 What Companies Will Still Hire People?40:15 AI in 3 Years