Today’s interview is with Daphne Costa Lopes, Global Director of Customer Success at HubSpot. Daphne joins me today to talk about customer success, why the customer isn’t always right, how siloed systems inhibit the delivery of tailored experiences, and what brands should be doing more of to drive customer-led growth. This interview follows on from my recent interview – There needs to be a really tight relationship between business strategy and target state architecture - Interview with Cale Urwin of Bupa – and is number 511 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: Today’s episode is sponsored by Hubspot who have built an AI-powered customer platform with all the software, integrations, and resources you need to connect your marketing, sales, and customer service. It’s all very cool so do check them out at HubSpot.com.

Today’s interview is with Cale Urwin, Director, Data, Digital & Marketing Health Services at Bupa. I caught up with Cale recently at PegaWorld in Las Vegas to talk about what stood for him at the event and how Bupa has evolved its customer engagement story and Customer Decision Hub capabilities in Australia from outbound to digital management and surprise & delight strategies. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The ongoing decline of brand loyalty, what’s driving it and what should be done about it – Interview with Simon Morris of ServiceNow – and is number 510 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. Disclaimer: I partnered with Pega to conduct interviews and provide my perspective on PegaWorld iNspire 2024.

Today’s interview is with Simon Morris, the Area Vice President of Solution Consulting at ServiceNow. Simon joins me today to talk about ServiceNow’s new Consumer Voice Report 2024, the ongoing decline of brand loyalty, what’s driving it, why “The future of customer experience is high-tech meets high-touch” and some of the biggest lessons coming out of the report. This interview follows on from my recent interview – We’ve only just scratched the surface of artificial intelligence – Interview with Peter van der Putten of Pega – and is number 509 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Dr Peter van der Putten, who is Director of the AI Lab at Pega and assistant professor of AI at Leiden University in The Netherlands. I caught up with Peter at the recent PegaWorld to talk about his highlights from the event, how to think about AI using a left/right brain thinking metaphor and what’s coming next in the enterprise AI space. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Listening and taking action at scale – Interview with Ron Secrist of Citi and Christina Sansone of Dish – and is number 508 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. Disclaimer: I partnered with Pega to conduct interviews and provide my perspective on PegaWorld iNspire 2024.

Today’s interview is a combo podcast in which I interview (separately) Ron Secrist, Managing Director, Head of Client Experience at Citi, and Christina Sansone, Vice President of CX Transformation at Dish. I met both of them when I attended Qualtrics’ X4 Summit in Salt Lake City last month and talked to them about their Qualtrics journey, what they are doing with AI and what listening and taking action at scale means for them. This interview follows on from my recent interview – How to get 2.7mln ‘Mom & Pop’ stores to adopt a new distributive trade platform – Interview with Prashaant Huria of Unilever – and is number 507 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Prashaant Huria, who is the Chief Technology Officer for Unilever’s Digital Distributive Trade business. Prashaant and I connected after he spoke at Adobe’s Global Summit in Las Vegas back in late March. We talked about how they got 2.7mln ‘Mom & Pop’ stores to adopt a new distributive trade platform that Prashaant and his team at Unilever have developed, what it can do and what impact it has had on the retailers as well as what sort of changes Unilever has had to go through to bring this to life and make it a success. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Lessons learnt from testing Copilot for service across tens of thousands of service engineers – Interview with Jeff Comstock of Microsoft – and is number 506 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Jeff Comstock, CVP of Dynamics 365 Customer Service at Microsoft. Jeff joins me today to talk about Co-Pilot for Service, the impact it is having on the agent experience and also customer/business outcomes, their experience trialling it extensively with their own customer service engineers, how their early adopter clients are leveraging Co-Pilot in Service, what they have done, the outcomes they achieved, how long it took them to achieve those outcomes and, finally, what are the big challenges that organisations need to tackle in order to fully realise the potential of leveraging Generative AI in customer service and experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Personalisation and the pink elephant in the room – Interview with Emma Springham of TSB – and is number 505 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: Today’s episode is sponsored by Qualtrics, ahead of the annual gathering of experience leaders at Qualtrics X4 in London on June 6th. There you can hear about some of the best customer experience programmes from industry leaders and companies including Belron, Allianz and Adidas. You can register now at the Qualtrics website.

Today’s interview is with Emma Springham, Chief Marketing Officer at TSB, a British retail and commercial bank. I met Emma at Adobe’s Global Summit in Las Vegas after she spoke on the Main Stage. Emma and I talk about the importance of your personal brand in marketing and CX leadership, the pink elephant in the room, what personalisation means for TSB, what they have done to deliver that, what impact it has had, and the importance of speaking the language of your CFO. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Making in-store grocery shopping fun and going viral on TikTok – Interview with David McIntosh of Instacart – and is number 504 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: Today’s episode is sponsored by Qualtrics, ahead of the annual gathering of experience leaders at Qualtrics X4 in London on June 6th. There you can hear about some of the best customer experience programmes from industry leaders and companies including Belron, Allianz and Adidas. You can register now at the Qualtrics website.

Today’s interview is with David McIntosh, who is VP and GM of Connected Stores at Instacart. David joins me today to talk about innovation in the retail space, why and how they are reaching into the physical retail domain, what they are up to, the benefits for both the customer and business and a look into the future of retail. This interview follows on from my recent interview – If you aren’t fixing the bigger picture, then you are just putting a band-aid on the problem – Interview with Zig Serafin of Qualtrics – and is number 503 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: Today’s episode is sponsored by Qualtrics, ahead of the annual gathering of experience leaders at Qualtrics X4 in London on June 6th. There you can hear about some of the best customer experience programmes from industry leaders and companies including Belron, Allianz and Adidas. You can register now at the Qualtrics website.

Today’s interview is with Zig Serafin, CEO at Qualtrics, the leading Experience Management software provider. I spoke to Zig at Qualtrics’ recent X4 event in Salt Lake City. We talked about Qualtrics’ vision, the highlights from the event, the XM Operating system, Qualtrics AI and the hundred different AI models that they have built, how they are empowering 43 out of 50 of the world’s largest brands to listen and then take action at scale and in real-time and the upcoming Qualtrics X4 EMEA event in London on June 6th. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The Generative AI landscape: The good, the bad and the boring – Interview with Don Schuerman of Pega – and is number 502 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: Today's episode is sponsored by Qualtrics, ahead of the annual gathering of experience leaders at Qualtrics X4 in London on June 6th. There you can hear about some of the best customer experience programmes from industry leaders and companies including Belron, Allianz and Adidas. You can register now at the Qualtrics website.

Today’s interview is with Don Schuerman, the CTO and Vice President of Product Strategy and Marketing at Pegasystems. Don joins me today to talk about the upcoming PegaWorld iNspire 2024 (PegaWorld is taking place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas from June 9th to the 11th and there is a money back guarantee!), what he’s most looking forward to at the event, the good and bad about the tech offerings out there in the market right now, and why it’s the “boring” use of AI that really will help enterprises work smarter and harder amongst other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Episode 500: Some reflections on the last 13 years – and is number 501 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

In today’s episode of the Punk CX podcast, there is no interview. Why? Because today, I am celebrating the 500th edition of the podcast! Woop! Woop! Now, I thought long and hard about how to commemorate the occasion and how I might be able to use an interview format to do so. I did toy with the idea of having someone interview me but then didn’t get myself organised enough to arrange that. So, you get me …… doing something new…..a monologue, if you like, where I share a few thoughts about my podcasting journey….so far. So, dive in, and I hope you enjoy some of my reflections and highlights from the last 13 years and 500 episodes. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Leadership, storytelling and why it is an art and it needs to be taught – Interview with Gareth Higgins – and is number 500 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Gareth Higgins, who writes and speaks about the power of storytelling to shape our lives and world, peace and justice, and how to take life seriously without believing your own propaganda. Gareth joins me today to talk about what makes a good story, whether good/effective storytelling be learnt, how people can start a journey towards being a better storyteller, what they should do to get started, and a simple but profound model for anyone who wants to build communities that promise mutual support, challenge, inspiration, protection and service to the common good. This interview follows on from my recent interview – You don’t get promoted for teaching people how to wash their hands – Interview with James Lawther – and is number 499 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with James Lawther, Director at Squawk Point Consulting and Author of ‘Managed by Morons: The Path to a Thriving Organisation’. James joins me today to talk about his new book, why so many organisations are mediocre, what we should be thinking about when it comes to measuring performance, a story about a Unilever soap factory, the signs of a poor culture and what we should doing to not become one of ‘those’ managers or leaders. This interview follows on from my recent interview – What happens when you give data back to people? – Interview with Jamie Smith of Customer Futures – and is number 498 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Jamie Smith, who is the Founder and CEO of Customer Futures Ltd, an advisory firm helping businesses seize the opportunity around disruptive and customer-empowering digital propositions, and author of the weekly Customer Futures Newsletter. Jamie joins me today to talk about CustomerTech tools, EmpowermentTech, the emerging Customer Stack, what this all means, the implications of all this for personalisation and privacy and what customer engagement in the near future could look like. This interview follows on from my recent interview – A look inside a punk-inspired contact center – Interview with David Powers – and is number 497 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with David Powers, who is an author, podcast host, Chief Experience Officer at Rooter Hero Plumbing & Air and a true punk. David joins me today to talk about the need for taking a more punk approach to customer experience and the contact center, what that means in practical terms, some of the big changes he’s seen in the contact center space over the last 23 years as well as some of the biggest challenges coming down the pipe and, finally, what it means to create a tribe and/or a scene in your contact center. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The CX value model and linking experience to business outcomes – Interview with Michael Hinshaw of McorpCX – and is number 496 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Michael Hinshaw, the founder and president of customer experience consultancy McorpCX. Michael joins me today to talk about the CX value model and why we should be linking experience to business outcomes, some key indicators of a successful customer-centric transformation, why your company might need an experience operating system (the XOS), what it is and what are the benefits. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Leadership lessons from the winner of the 2023 CX Leader of the Year – Interview with Roxie Strohmenger of UKG – and is number 495 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with the winner of the MyCustomer 2023 CX Leader of the Year competition: Roxie Strohmenger, GSO - VP, CX Strategy at UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group). This interview is slightly different this week as I conduct it with Clare Muscutt, Founder and CEO of Women in CX but follows the same format to the one last year where we interviewed Maneesha Bhusal of JD .ID, the winner of the 2022 CX Leader of the Year. In the interview, we discuss Roxie’s journey to where she is now, why she applied for the CX Leader of the Year competition, how she felt when she won and the biggest lessons that she has learned along the way. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The frontline is where you connect EX and CX together in a very natural way – Interview with Joe Tyrrell of Medallia – and is number 494 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Joe Tyrrell, CEO of Medallia. Joe joins me today to talk about why brands must consider EX in their journey to CX success, his view on the impact Generative AI is having on the world of experience and where he thinks it is heading, personalization and the big challenges that organizations need to tackle in order to fully realise the potential that lies in front of them. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Forget the hype. Here’s what enterprises are actually doing with generative AI – Interview with Stefano Puntoni and Jeremy Korst – and is number 493 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Stefano Puntoni, Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School and Director of AI at Wharton, and Jeremy Korst, President at GBK Collective. Stefano and Jeremy join me today to talk about a new report called The Rise of Generative AI in the Enterprise that they collaborated on and recently released, some of the biggest emerging applications and use cases for gen AI in the enterprise space coming out of the report, what reservations leaders have about the technology, the impact that gen AI will have on the demand for talent, what functional areas are lagging behind and what sort of safeguards brands should be putting in place to safely realize the potential of AI with customers. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The raw and honest truth about what agents think about their jobs – Interview with Juanita Coley – and is number 492 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.