Punk CX: Customer Experience Insights with Adrian Swinscoe

Today’s interview is with Kevin Kelly, is a leading authority on the success principles of entrepreneurship, leadership, sales and motivation. Already a best selling author, he joins me today to talk about his new book: DO! - The pursuit of xceptional execution. This interview follows on from my recent interview: Deliver great customer experience by including your customers – Interview with Mark Hurst of Creative Good – and is number seventy eight in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things and helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.

Today’s interview is with Peter A. Hunter, an author and leading authority on employee engagement. Following an exchange on the Engage For Success LinkedIn group, I arranged to have a chat with Peter about his thoughts on employee engagement and his new book: The Problem With Management - and How to Solve It. This interview follows on from my recent interview: Learning from the university of the customer and the co-worker – Interview with Kevin Kelly - and is number seventy nine in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things and helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.

Today’s interview is with Ken Olisa OBE, who is the founder and Chairman of Restoration Partners, a boutique technology merchant bank that provides advice to technology firms. Restoration Partners, by their own admittance, shamelessly copy the traditional Warburg merchant-banking model of developing long term, trusted relationships with their clients and aligning their interests and rewards. Ken agreed to talk to me about his family motto: "Do Well, Do Good", why he thinks it's important that entrepreneurs and business follow this mantra, his experience as a successful entrepreneur and his interest in both good governance and social inclusion. This interview follows on from my recent interview: Employee engagement is like rolling a snowball uphill – Interview with Peter A. Hunter – and is number eighty in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things and helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.

Today’s interview is with Jim Dicso, President and Chief Revenue Officer of SundaySky, which has pioneered technology that allows firms to deliver personalised videos to their customers in real-time. This allows firms to lower costs, increase engagement and grow revenues. Jim agreed to talk to me about the cool things that SundaySky are doing with SmartVideo, particularly in the area of proactive customer service. This interview follows on from my recent interview: Doing Well, Doing Good And Learning The Lesson Of The Orangutan – Interview with Ken Olisa of Restoration Partners – and is number eighty one in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things and helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.

Today’s interview is with Shep Hyken, a customer service expert, professional speaker and bestselling author who works with companies and organizations who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. Shep has just published a new book: Amaze Every Customer, Every Time: 52 Tools for Delivering The Most Amazing Customer Service On The Planet and I was really pleased when he agreed to talk to me about the book, his experience and to share some insights. This interview follows on from my recent interview: Smart proactive customer service that delivers results – Interview with Jim Dicso of SundaySky - and is number eighty two in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things and helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.

Today’s interview is with Bian Salins, Head of Social at Now TV, BSkyB. I was introduced to Bian by Martin Hill-Wilson who suggested I should talk to Bian as she was one of the few people that really 'gets' what it is to be a 'social business'. More importantly, he said, she doesn't just talk about it….she makes it happen for big organisations. Therefore, I was very excited when Bian agreed to spend some time sharing her experience and a few insights around social business and what it takes to make the transformation into a more social business. This interview follows on from my recent interview: The Tools To Deliver Amazing Customer Service Every Time – Interview With Shep Hyken – and is number eighty three in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things and helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.

Today’s interview is with Yuval Brisker, the co-founder of TOA Technologies, which was picked in October 2013 as 'A Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management'. Yuval joins me today to talk about what they are doing, what makes them stand out and how they are removing the 'friction' from the last mile of customer service. This interview follows on from my recent interview: Real life lessons on how to build a social business – Interview with Bian Salins – and is number eighty four in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things and helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service. Note: Apologies for some minor issues on my voice during the interview......what can I say.....technology and technical hitches....that we were able to overcome. Apologies if it affects the interview. I've edited it and applied some magic and don't think it is too bad. However, I'll let you be the judge of that :)

Today’s interview is with Craig Dubitsky, the founder and CEO of hello products. They first came to my attention when I heard that Craig has his Skype address on the homepage of their website as a way of encouraging their customers to get in touch. I was even more intrigued when I found out they are reinventing a category in the consumer products market and having some phenomenal success. Craig joins me today to talk about what they are doing, why they are doing it, what makes them stand, what he's learned along the way and their plans to make the world a friendlier place, starting with your mouth. This interview follows on from my recent interview: Removing the ‘friction’ from the last mile of customer service – Interview with Yuval Brisker of TOA Technologies – and is number eighty five in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.

Today’s interview is with Dave Keeling, who is 6’ 2”, ginger, a professional actor and has been a ‘stand-up’ educationalist for over 10 years. Dave has recently published a book called: The Little Book of Laughter: Using humour as a tool to engage and motivate all learners. Whilst the book is primarily aimed at people in education, I believe there are lessons and parallels for how we build teams, develop them and create engaged employees. I also thought it'd be great to finish the series of interviews this year with a little bit of humour :) Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to present to you my discussion with Dave, where we talk about why having fun should be in everyone's job description, how we can use humour as a tool to engage and motivate people, how it helps improve communication, learning and engagement in the workplace and why laughter is important to the workplace. This interview follows on from my recent interview: Customer service done different and fast reinvention of a faceless product category – Interview with Craig Dubitsky of hello – and is number eighty six in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.

Today’s interview is with Bruce Poon Tip, founder of G Adventures and the Planeterra foundation. Bruce recently had a book published called Looptail: How One Company Changed the World by Reinventing Business, which recounts the story of the founding and development of G Adventures from a garage office start-up into the largest small group adventure travel company in the world and Bruce’s quest to develop a business model that balances karma, community and culture to produce outstanding results. This interview follows on from my recent interview: Improve employee engagement and customer service through the use of humour – Interview with Dave Keeling - and is number eighty seven in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.