Punk CX: Customer Experience Insights with Adrian Swinscoe

Today’s interview is with James Dodkins, who is commonly know as the CX Rockstar, is a former rockstar but is now the CX Evangelist at Pegasystems. James joins me today to talk about his journey, why he’s joined Pega, what he’s going to be getting up to, extreme fandoms, hyper-fans and what’s stood out for him regarding customer experience over the last 15 months. This interview follows on from my recent interview – A good customer experience starts with having the right tools – Interview with Liat Bycel of Airtable — and is number 397 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 Liat Bycel, the VP of Sales at Airtable, the no code collaboration platform, and the person responsible for building the customer engagement organization which comprises team members from sales, customers success, support, support ops, sales ops and strategy. Liat joins me to today to talk about the ‘messy middle’ syndrome, being well-prepared when the pandemic hit, how she built their customer engagement organization, adopting a new hybrid work pattern and why we need to consider onboarding for everyone again. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Ineffective communication is a silent killer of customer service performance – Interview with Dorian Stone of Grammarly Business — and is number 396 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 Dorian Stone, General Manager of Grammarly Business, who oversees all operations for Grammarly’s integrated business solution. Grammarly is a cross-platform, cloud-based, AI-enabled, writing assistant that reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement and delivery mistakes in real-time. Dorian joins me today to talk about customer service and experience, writing and the impact of ineffective communication on productivity and service as well as other areas of business. This interview follows on from my recent interview – We’re going 100mph. But, we have no rules of the road and we need them – Interview with Ben Pring of Cognizant — and is number 395 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 Ben Pring, who is the head of thought leadership at Cognizant, co-founded and leads Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work, and is a member of Cognizant’s Executive Leadership Team. Ben joins me today to talk abut his new book, that he co-authored with his colleague Paul Roehrig, called: Monster: A Tough Love Letter On Taming the Machines that Rule our Jobs, Lives, and Future, why we can’t cede control of technology to technologists, can we afford to wait for governments to fix tech’s problems, the declarations that the book makes as part of its manifesto, which ones apply to customer and employee experience professionals, what happens if we don’t take action, what’s our window of opportunity and what we should be doing and thinking about right now. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Diversity, combating bias in AI and why everything is an input – Interview with Deon Nicholas of Forethought — and is number 394 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 Deon Nicholas, is the Co-Founder and CEO of Forethought, an AI company that creates order, removes redundant work, and provides efficiency for businesses everywhere. They are set on changing the way enterprises access, share, and leverage their knowledge. Moreover, not only is Forethought committed to diversity, it's part of their strategy. Deon joins me today to talk about Unbiased AI, how bias gets into AI, overfitting, how we can rid AI of unconscious biases, what customer service and experience teams should be looking out for and doing more of or doing better, what is Forethought doing differently to tackle these issues and how diversity is a central part of their strategy. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Who are the people that feel the least welcome when they engage with a business? – Interview with Gavin Neate of WelcoMe — and is number 393 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 Gavin Neate, CEO and Founder of Neatebox, the umbrella company for WelcoMe and Button. WelcoMe lets service teams know when a disabled person is about to arrive and provides them with the very best general and personal information as to how to interact. Gavin joins me today talk about disability, disability and customer service/experience, inclusive CX, how WelcoMe is helping and what customer service and experience leaders should be thinking about. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The lost child of customer experience (CX) is taking action – Interview with Jason Grier of Reputation — and is number 392 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 Jason Grier, Chief Customer Officer of Reputation, a leading business-to-business online reputation management and customer experience management company. Jason joins me today to talk about cars, speedometers, experiencing your own experience, the (over)focus on metrics, the power of unstructured feedback and the report that Forrester that produced for them and some great advice for CX practitioners about what they should be prioritizing when it comes to improving the experience they deliver. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Employee experience, the war for talent and what to avoid in a back to the office strategy – Interview with Steve Lucas of iCIMS — and is number 391 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 Steve Lucas, CEO of iCIMS, a talent cloud company. Steve joins me today to talk about changes in working patterns over the last 12 months, the findings from their new research report: 2021 Workforce Report: Respond, Recover, Readapt, employee experience and the competition for talent. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Your values are designed to attract, but also to repel – Interview with Borzou Azabdaftari of The Falcon Lab — and is number 390 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 SugarCRM for sponsoring my podcast this month. SugarCRM, the provider of the #1 rated Customer Experience platform, is trusted by thousands of companies in over 120 countries to help them achieve high-definition CX. Recently they released their new CRM and Sales Impact Report which surveyed 1,000 sales professionals from around the globe on what’s driving (or stalling) revenue and customer engagement. The report also asks a provocative question: Are companies on the cusp of a customer relationship crisis. To find out the answer check out and download the report here.

NOTE: This episode contains some profanity. Not too much but definitely some. You are warned! Today’s interview is with Borzou Azabdaftari, Boss at The Falcon Lab, a full service marketing agency. Borzou joins me today to talk values, profanity, having profane values, it’s impact on clients and the changing nature of customer experience and what increasingly matters. Big shout out to Stan Phelps and David Rendall for introducing me to Borzou. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Are companies on the cusp of a customer relationship crisis? – Interview with David Campbell of SugarCRM — and is number 389 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. ADDITIONAL NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at SugarCRM for sponsoring my podcast this month. SugarCRM, the provider of the #1 rated Customer Experience platform, is trusted by thousands of companies in over 120 countries to help them achieve high-definition CX. Recently they released their new CRM and Sales Impact Report which surveyed 1,000 sales professionals from around the globe on what’s driving (or stalling) revenue and customer engagement. The report also asks a provocative question: Are companies on the cusp of a customer relationship crisis. To find out the answer check out and download the report here.

Today’s interview is with David Campbell, the vice president of product marketing at SugarCRM, the #1 rated Customer Experience platform. David joins me today to talk about CRM, what grade he would give CRM after being around for 25 years, SugarCRM’s recent CRM and Sales Impact Report, what the findings mean, what we need to do differently and whether or not we are on the cusp of a customer relationship crisis. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Improving the customer experience of a FMCG category through a pandemic – Interview with Jan Kodadek — and is number 388 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 SugarCRM for sponsoring my podcast this month. SugarCRM, the provider of the #1 rated Customer Experience platform, is trusted by thousands of companies in over 120 countries to help them achieve high-definition CX. Recently they released their new CRM and Sales Impact Report which surveyed 1,000 sales professionals from around the globe on what’s driving (or stalling) revenue and customer engagement. The report also asks a provocative question: Are companies on the cusp of a customer relationship crisis. To find out the answer check out and download the report here.