Today’s interview is like an interview I released a couple of weeks ago and features two, separate interviews that I conducted on a recent trip to Pegaworld iNspire held in Las Vegas. The first interview is with Kerim Akgonul, the Chief Product Officer at Pega. This is swiftly followed by a chat with Dr Peter Van Der Putten, who is assistant professor of AI at Leiden University in The Netherlands and Director of the AI Lab at Pega. I talk to them both about their highlights from the event and what’s top of mind for them in the service and experience space right now. Unsurprisingly, we cover the automated enterprise, demos featuring western omelettes, process mining, how to get the most value out of AI and, of course, how gen AI will impact all of this. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Revisiting the Big Ass Fans story and what happened next – Interview with Carey Smith of Unorthodox Ventures – and is number 477 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 Carey Smith, who is Founding Contrarian at Unorthodox Ventures. Carey is a returning guest and was first on the podcast back in October 2014, where along with his colleague Dave Waltz, they shared with me the story of how their customer service strategy was central to growing the Big Ass Fans business five-fold over a five year period. That was nine years ago! Nine years! So, I thought it would be great to invite Carey back onto the podcast to find out what happened next. This interview follows on from my recent interview – New shoes, a surprising but delightful musical collaboration, the autonomous enterprise, gen AI and getting personalisation right – Interview with James Dodkins and Tara DeZao of Pega – and is number 476 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 a bit different as it features two, separate interviews in one episode. It's a two-fer! These interviews were conducted on a recent trip to Pegaworld iNspire held in Las Vegas. The first interview is with James Dodkins, who is the CX Evangelist at Pega. This is swiftly followed by a chat with Tara DeZao, Director of Product Marketing, AdTech and MarTech at Pega. I talk to them both about their highlights from the event and what’s top of mind for them in the service and experience space right now. Unsurprisingly, we cover the autonomous enterprise, generative AI, new shoes, bad rock tracks, a surprise but great musical collaboration, first-party data, getting your ‘data’ house in order, getting personalisation right and, of course, how gen AI will impact all of this. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Taking an employee-centric approach has allowed us to achieve an attrition rate of 5% – Interview with Jose Herrera of Horatio CX – and is number 475 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 Jose Herrera, CEO and Co-Founder of Horatio CX, a next generation CX outsourcing firm and the trusted partner of some of the leading and fastest growing ecommerce companies. Jose joins me today to talk about maintaining a human connection when everyone else seems to be talking about how customer service needs to be led by robots, taking an employee-centric approach, achieving an industry-leading attrition rate of only 5% and building a truly inclusive culture. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Our transformation journey and unleashing the power of AI and automation – Interview with Shelia Anderson of Aflac – and is number 474 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 Shelia Anderson, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Aflac, a Fortune 500 company that provides insurance and financial protection to millions of policyholders and customers through its subsidiaries in the U.S. and Japan. I met Shelia as part of a recent trip to Pegaworld iNspire held in Las Vegas. Shelia delivered one of the keynotes on the main stage and was talking about Aflac's journey and how they have unleashed the power of Pega AI and automation. After her keynote, I sat down with Shelia for a quick chat for the podcast. By the way, you can watch Shelia’s keynote and all of the talks from Pegaworld on-demand here. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The messy middle of customer service revisited – Interview with Michael Ramsey of ServiceNow – and is number 473 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 Michael Ramsey, VP of Customer Workflow Products at ServiceNow, a cloud computing platform that help companies manage digital workflows for enterprise operations. Michael joins me today to revisit the idea of the messy middle of customer experience, what's happened since we last spoke about this around 2 1/2 years ago, what companies are doing to clean up their messy middles, the role AI and process mining plays in that, how generative AI is helping with this sort of endeavour and who’s doing it well. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The pragmatic approach to transforming customer service – Interview with Mike Upton of First Tech Credit Union – and is number 472 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 TextExpander for sponsoring this episode of my podcast. TextExpander is an auto-complete tool that allows your team to eliminate repetitive typing and stay on the same page with just a few keystrokes allowing you to delight more customers in less time. Click here to find out more and to get a 20% discount for the first 12 months of TextExpander if you use the code: SWINSCOE

Today’s interview is with Michael Upton, Chief Digital & Technology Officer at First Tech Credit Union (or First Tech), which is the US’s premier credit union serving the world’s leading technology-oriented companies and their employees. I met Mike as part of a recent trip to Pegaworld iNspire held in Las Vegas. Mike was talking at one of the break-out sessions, and his topic was The Pragmatic Approach to Transforming Customer Service. I couldn’t resist that title and thought Mike’s insights would appeal to you too so I nabbed Mike for a quick chat for the podcast. By the way, you can view the replays of the talks on-demand here. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Purposefully designed experiences don’t happen by accident – Interview with Deborah Battaglia of Assurant – and is number 471 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 Deborah (Deb) Battaglia, Senior Vice President, Customer Experience at Assurant, Inc, a global B2B2C Fortune 300 company that provides risk management and insurance products to leading automotive, housing, and mobile technology companies. Deb joins me today to talk about the ‘why’ & vision for their transformation, how long the programme has been running, what they have achieved in terms of outcomes, how the pandemic impacted things, the outlook for the future and how they aim to leverage new technologies as well as some key learnings & top tips for others on their own journey. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Developing empathy within ourselves and the machines that we build – Interview with Minter Dial – and is number 470 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 Minter Dial, an international speaker and a multiple award-winning author, specialized in leadership, branding and transformation. Back in February 2019, Minter joined me on the podcast to talk about his book: Heartificial Empathy. Now, so much has happened since then that he felt compelled to update the book and is back to talk to me about why he felt the need to update the book, what’s changed, why the development of empathy is still important, how we can develop it not only within ourselves but also the machines that we develop, what to watch out for when we do so and how the emergence of ChatGPT and the whole generative AI wave affects all of this. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Why you should be adopting an Experience Mindset – Interview with Tiffani Bova of Salesforce – and is number 469 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 TextExpander for sponsoring this episode of my podcast. TextExpander is an auto-complete tool that allows your team to eliminate repetitive typing and stay on the same page with just a few keystrokes allowing you to delight more customers in less time. Click here to find out more and to get a 20% discount for the first 12 months of TextExpander if you use the code: SWINSCOE

Today’s interview is with Tiffani Bova, the global customer growth and innovation evangelist at Salesforce, and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Growth IQ. Tiffani joins me today to talk about her new book: The Experience Mindset: Changing the Way You Think About Growth, what is an Experience Mindset, what’s the best way to adopt one, why it’s important to take a combined customer and employee experience approach, the research that accompanied the development of the book and what’s the payoff to adopting an Experience Mindset. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Customer experience (CX) leaders will become the engagement quarterbacks of the future – Interview with Mike Murchison of Ada – and is number 468 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 Pega for sponsoring my podcast this month. We are fast approaching PegaWorld iNspire which is Pega’s annual conference that will be held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV, from June 11th to 13th. This year it will be an in-person event, for the first time in four years, and will bring together experts and industry leaders to demystify technologies like generative AI and intelligent automation They will also illustrate how enterprises can practically apply these technologies to turbocharge productivity, improve low-code app development, and optimize customer engagement. Check out PegaWorld.com to find out more and, hopefully, I’ll see you there.