Today’s interview is with Mike Murchison, co-founder and CEO of Ada, a leading customer service automation provider. Mike joins me today to talk about how the conventional customer experience playbook is outdated, why brands should be talking to their customers more as they grow (not less), a view on the future of customer experience, what service and support teams will do in the future and how CX leaders are likely to be the quarterbacks of the future. This interview follows on from my recent interview – There’s no point having a fast bike, if you don’t know how to ride it – Interview with Jerry Haywood of Boost.ai – and is number 467 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.

Today’s interview is with Jerry Haywood, who is the Chief Executive Officer at boost.ai, a leading provider of conversational AI for enterprises. Jerry joins me today to talk about if ChatGPT has become the fastest proprietary eponym or generic trademark in history, why chat-first customer service strategy is the future of the customer experience and how those interfaces will not just be text based, how recent and future advancements from ChatGPT, Bard, Ernie, and ANOther LLMs will change things and the what the future holds for conversational AI. This interview follows on from my recent interview – PegaWorld iNspire: Towards the autonomous enterprise and celebrating 40 years of innovation – Interview with Don Schuerman of Pega – and is number 466 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 for the coming 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.

Today’s interview is with Don Schuerman, the CTO and Vice President of Product Strategy and Marketing at Pegasystems. Don joins me today to talk about the upcoming PegaWorld iNspire, how excited Don feels about being back face-to-face again after four years, celebrating Pega's 40th anniversary and 40 years of innovation, the autonomous enterprise, what that means and what it requires as well as generative AI and where he thinks it’s likely to have the most impact in the near term. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The promise of generative AI in customer care and the challenges ahead – Interview with Ryan McDonald, Chief Scientist at ASAPP – and is number 465 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 for the coming 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

Today’s interview is with Ryan McDonald, Chief Scientist at ASAPP. Ryan joins me today to talk about his experience over the last 20 years in the language technology space (AI: NLP, ML, LLMs), recent developments in the generative AI space, the challenges that enterprises face in embracing and leveraging this technology and how ASAPP is advancing AI to augment human activity to address real-world problems for enterprises, particularly in the area of customer care. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Well-being and the changing nature of management and leadership – Interview with Ray Biggs, Head of Customer Care at John Lewis & Waitrose – and is number 464 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 Ray Biggs, Head of Customer Care at John Lewis & Waitrose. Ray joins me today to talk about their customer care programme, their focus on agent/partner well-being, particularly in the face of turnover, attrition and burnout and changing working arrangements, the implementation of well-being time outs, the changing nature of management and leadership, especially in the customer care environment, a quote from Martin Hill Wilson and Kicker shoes no less. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The connection between flight simulators, agent attrition and better outcomes – Interview with Brian Tuite of Zenarate – and is number 463 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 or on the banner image above 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 Brian Tuite, the cofounder & CEO of Zenarate, a leader in developing top-performing customer-facing teams through AI Conversation Simulation. Brian joins me today to talk about agent turnover and attrition and how much of that is driven by the level of training, preparation and support that agents receive and how they are leveraging AI and simulation training to help solve this perennial problem and improve outcomes for both customers and employees. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The crucial role of constant storytelling and change management in our transformation – Interview with Nadia Ness of Ikea – and is number 462 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 Nadia Ness, who is Global Head of Transformation (Customer Support) at Ikea. Nadia joins me today to talk about transforming IKEA’s customer support, the rationale behind their three-year transformation programme, what they did, what they achieved and what they learned along the way. This interview follows on from my recent interview – As people, we don’t need personalization, we need humanization – Interview with Paul Greenberg – and is number 461 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 Paul Greenberg, the founder & Managing Principal of The 56 Group, LLC, an advisory firm, focused on customer-facing strategic services, including CRM, customer experience and customer engagement strategies. He is also an author, considered a thought leader in CRM and often called “The Godfather of CRM” (that’s the industry's name for him not his. His is "CRM Grandfather" because he's OLD [His words, not mine 😂]). Paul is also one of the contributors to Punk XL. He joins me on the podcast to catch up and talk about the state of the CRM market, what’s exciting him about the customer technology market, Playaz Production Networks, and to get his view on the emergence of ChatGPT, amongst other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – We can’t be digital-first, we have to be customer-first – Interview with Sue Duris of M4 Comms – and is number 460 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 Sue Duris, Principal Consultant of M4 Communications, a global CX consulting firm. Sue joins me today to talk about customer understanding, internal customers, being curious enough to care and why we can't be digital-first and that we have to be customer first. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Tool time, task time and how ChatGPT will change everything in customer support – Interview with Des Traynor of Intercom – and is number 459 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 or on the banner image above 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 Des Traynor, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder at Intercom. Des joins me today to talk about some research they recently conducted around customers' communication preferences and what that means. We then go on to talk about ChatGPT and how they believe it will change everything, particularly in the world of customer service, support and experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Let your people be the humans they’ve spent all their life training to be – Interview with John Sills of The Foundation – and is number 458 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.