Punk CX: Customer Experience Insights with Adrian Swinscoe

Today’s episode of the Punk CX podcast is with Malte Kosub, the co-founder and CEO of Parloa, a provider of an enterprise-grade AI agent management platform for customer service. Malte joins me today to talk about standing out in an increasingly crowded field, his vision for how customer support will evolve over the coming five years, and what successful companies are doing to allow them to tap into the potential of this new technological wave. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Transforming CX with predictable AI and workflow automation – Interview with Rebecca Miller of Pega – and is number 551 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 episode of the Punk CX podcast is with Rebecca Miller, Senior Product Strategy Manager in the customer service and sales automation division at Pega. Rebecca joined me on the podcast recently to talk about the recently announced Pega Self-Service Agent, the problem with the current solutions in the market, why Pega is taking a fundamentally different approach to self-service and why it’s critical that these types of solutions leverage enterprise workflows. This podcast is sponsored by Pega. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Overcome incrementality by reimagining customer and agent experience – Interview with NiCE’s CEO and Staysure’s COO – and is number 550 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 episode of the Punk CX podcast features two interviews. The first is with Scott Russell, CEO at NiCE, a provider of AI-driven customer service software that helps deliver automation & personalized experiences at scale. Scott and I talk about their recent Interactions events in Las Vegas and London, why many organisations are still uncertain about how to best leverage AI and innovation to transform customer experiences, why we should be creating a more human experience and not just automating for efficiency, their 2025 Global Happiness Index, a new report they have produced called The C-Suite Disconnect and, finally, their new campaign about creating a ‘NiCE world’. Following my chat with Scott, I spoke to Alistair Hadfield, the COO of Staysure Group, the UK’s #1 Travel Insurer, about the digital transformation that they are going through, their journey with NiCE and why they chose them and what lessons they have learnt along the way. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Five blind spots that get in the way of customer understanding and growth – Interview with Toni Keskinen of 180ops – and is number 549 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 Toni Keskinen, who is the Co-Founder, Chief Product Officer & Chairman at 180ops, a revenue intelligence platform built on account-based customer data that empowers B2B businesses to drive revenue growth, optimize operations, and enhance customer lifetime value. Toni joins me today to discuss five different blind spots that he believes many organisations suffer from when it comes to understanding their customers, driving growth, and where they should focus their resources, particularly in sales and account management. This interview follows on from my recent interview – SRM and why it matters to growth and customer experience – Interview with Ryan Hamilton – and is number 548 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 Ryan Hamilton, an Associate Professor of Marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, an author and the co-host of The Intuitive Customer Podcast with Colin Shaw. Ryan joins me today to talk about his new book (The Growth Dilemma: Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things), why an obsession with growth can be counterproductive, what the heck SRM is, why marketers should be thinking about customer segment compatibility and what happens when a brand serves incompatible segments, amongst other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Employee understanding and cracking the code of a better employee experience – Interview with Annette Franz – and is number 547 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 Annette Franz, an author, speaker and founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc. She is also an old friend of the podcast and appeared back in 2019. She joins me today to talk about her new book: Employee Understanding: A Three-Pillar Framework for Designing a Great Experience and Driving Business Success, the difference between employee engagement and employee experience, the time that Annette was working at JD Power & Assocs and W. Earl Sasser, Jr. and Leonard Schlesinger (both from Harvard and two of the authors of Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work) came to their office and what leaders should do first if they want to design and deliver a great employee experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Without context, an insight is worth nothing – Interview with Jochem van der Veer of TheyDo – and is number 546 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.

Jochem van der Veer, Co-Founder and CEO of TheyDo, dives into the world of journey management, emphasizing its role in crafting seamless customer experiences. He discusses the pitfalls of data overload and the lack of collaboration among departments in decision-making. They explore the necessity of engaging leaders directly with customers to foster satisfaction and a customer-centric culture. The conversation highlights the evolving significance of journey mapping, revealing how it can drive business success when approached thoughtfully.

Today’s interview is with Nikola Mrkšić, Co-founder & CEO of PolyAI, a leading supplier of Conversational AI for automated customer service. We talk about some recent research of theirs that finds that the phone still reigns in customer service, making the contact center into a ‘command center,’ why voice channels aren’t relics of the past but are, in fact, essential infrastructure, that customer service interactions are becoming increasingly contentious and what their AI capabilities are doing to help with that. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The future of CX and agentic CX – Interview with Sid Banerjee of Medallia – and is number 544 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.

Sid Banerjee, Chief Strategy Officer at Medallia and former CEO of Clarabridge, joins the discussion on the evolving landscape of customer experience. He shares insights on balancing AI and human touch in CX, the impact of large language models on service delivery, and the challenges brands face amid technological advancements. Banerjee also highlights innovative strategies from companies like Jaguar Land Rover. With humor and anecdotes, he emphasizes the importance of laughter and community in navigating tough times.

Marcelo Calbucci, an entrepreneur and author of 'The PRFAQ Framework', shares insights on leveraging Amazon's innovative techniques for businesses. He elaborates on the PRFAQ framework, stressing its role in defining product vision and enhancing communication over traditional methods. Marcelo addresses overcoming writing fear and the importance of understanding human behavior for improving customer experiences. He also discusses the positive impact of AI on innovation and job creation, highlighting companies renowned for exceptional customer service.