Punk CX: Customer Experience Insights with Adrian Swinscoe

Today’s interview is with Jon Picoult is founder of Watermark Consulting, a leading customer experience advisory firm, and author of a new book: FROM IMPRESSED TO OBSESSED: 12 Principles for Turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans. Jon joins me today to talk about the book, the most universal problem in customer experience today, why customer experience is like a choreographed performance, the biggest mistake companies make when embarking on a customer experience improvement effort and the ROI of customer experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Customer purchasing decisions are increasingly being driven by their values – Interview with Alan Williams — and is number 407 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Alan Williams, who is the Founder & MD, SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL, and helps service sector organisations to deliver significantly better business performance and a service excellence culture through values-driven organisational alignment. He joins me today to talk about his new book: “The Values Economy, How to Deliver Values Driven Service for Sustained Performance”, what we can learn from it, how values can impact better service and experience and World Values Day. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Customer service: The most important job in the company – Interview with Fortuné Alexander of Pega — and is number 406 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Fortuné Alexander who is the senior director of product marketing for customer service and sales automation solutions at Pega. Fortuné joins me today to talk about National Customer Service Week, recognising and celebrating excellent customer service, the changing world of work, service with respect, simplifying service, applying technology, where to start, contact center heroes and giving them the recognition they deserve and also leadership. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The only thing that limits you on a no code platform is your imagination – Interview with Pierce Buckley of babelforce — and is number 405 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at babelforce for sponsoring my podcast this month.

Today’s interview is with Pierce Buckley who is an automation and CX expert plus the CEO and Co-founder of babelforce. Pierce joins me today to talk contact centres, customer service, customer experience, AI, the schmai-i bit, busting a few myths around the whole tech and service space, no-code platforms, what that really means, what’s the difference between RPA and no-code and how organisations should be approaching and leveraging AI and no-code in their business, particularly when it comes to improving customer service/experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The metric that is more important than NPS and CSAT – Interview with Shep Hyken — and is number 404 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at babelforce for sponsoring my podcast this month.

Today’s interview is with Shep Hyken, who is the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations and a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. Shep joins me today today to talk about his latest book: I’ll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again and Again, what an Arnie is, the metric that is more important than NPS and CSAT, the difference between a repeat customer and a loyal customer, where true empathy for the customer starts and if self-service can drive customer loyalty and a whole host of other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – We need to start talking about experience leadership – Interview with Peter Cross — and is number 403 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at babelforce for sponsoring my podcast this month.   babelforce is the #1 most flexible platform for contact center service. Pierce Buckley, CEO and Co-founder of babelforce, and his team of telecoms veterans have created a powerful cloud communications solution focused on No-Code integration and automation. Their goal is to break down every barrier to great customer experiences by putting intuitive tools in the hands of people who live and breathe CX. Pierce and Jonathan Baer of Vonage are running a webinar on the 28th October at 11:00am CET and they will be discussing exactly how businesses are getting maximum benefit from WhatsApp, one of the fastest-growing channels for customer service. Follow this link to sign up. You don’t want to miss out as you will get to see a demo of the babelforce platform in action!

Today’s interview is with retail expert Peter Cross who until recently was the Customer Experience Director at John Lewis and Waitrose and prior to that spent ten years as Mary Portas’ business partner. Peter joins me today to talk about retail customer experience, some of the lessons he has learned over the course of the last few years, experience leadership and what he sees as some of the challenges ahead for experience leaders. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The top frustrations of customers and agents are the same – Interview with Jeff Nicholson of Pega — and is number 402 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at babelforce for sponsoring my podcast this month.   babelforce is the #1 most flexible platform for contact center service. Pierce Buckley, CEO and Co-founder of babelforce, and his team of telecoms veterans have created a powerful cloud communications solution focused on No-Code integration and automation. Their goal is to break down every barrier to great customer experiences by putting intuitive tools in the hands of people who live and breathe CX. Pierce and Jonathan Baer of Vonage are running a webinar on the 28th October at 11:00am CET and they will be discussing exactly how businesses are getting maximum benefit from WhatsApp, one of the fastest-growing channels for customer service. Follow this link to sign up. You don’t want to miss out as you will get to see a demo of the babelforce platform in action!

Today’s interview is with Jeff Nicholson, Global Leader, CRM Strategy for Pega, where he heads up the company’s CRM market strategy and vision worldwide. Jeff joins me today to talk about their recently released new piece of research: Resolution revolution: Customer service insights report, what we can learn from it, what we should be focusing on, agent experience, the emerging landscape of customer service and sine waves! This interview follows on from my recent interview – What do immersive VR, empathetic interactions and stand out customer service have in common? – Interview with Monika Jo of Mursion — and is number 401 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Monika Jo, Director Of Communications at Mursion, a virtual reality platform for professionals to practice and master the complex interpersonal skills necessary to be effective in their roles. This blend of technology and human performance creates a highly realistic training environment that mimics the real-world challenges employees face every day. Monika joins me today to talk about the report that they recently published (The Human Edge in an AI World), what we can learn from it, the importance of EQ, building an empathetic musculature and what Mursion do to try help organisations and individuals get better at being more empathetic in their interactions with customers. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Pink Goldfish, standing out, portmanteaus and wabi-sabi – Interview with Stan Phelps and Dave Rendall — and is number 400 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Stan Phelps and Dave Rendall, co-authors of Pink Goldfish 2.0: Defy Normal and Exploit Imperfection. They join me today to talk about flaws, imperfections, portmanteaus and how we make our imperfections work for us and help us stand out. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Playing your way to a stand out customer experience – Interview with Sirte Pihlaja — and is number 399 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

In this episode, Sirte Pihlaja discusses how happiness and creativity can impact customer experience, the use of Lego Serious Play methodology in workshops to drive innovation, and the gap between customer experience strategies and implementation. She also shares examples of creative strategies, such as using Lego bricks to engage employees and the importance of injecting fun into social media campaigns.