Punk CX: Customer Experience Insights with Adrian 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.

Today’s interview is with John Sills, Managing Partner at the customer-led growth company, The Foundation. John joins me today to talk about his new book (The Human Experience: How to make life better for your customers and create a more successful organization), three myths that get in the way of injecting more humanity into experience and seven behaviours and five enablers that help companies and brands deliver a more human experience amongst some other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – We need to move leadership from the job of one to the job of the many – Interview with Julia Fabris McBride of the Kansas Leadership Center – and is number 457 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 Julia Fabris McBride, Chief Leadership Development Officer at the Kansas Leadership Center and co-author of a new book called When Everyone Leads: How The Toughest Challenges Get Seen And Solved. Julia joins me today to talk about the new book, why we need to change the way we look at leadership, adaptive vs technical challenges and how to get started on creating a culture where everyone leads. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Building your house to be able to deliver a truly personalised customer experience – Interview with Greg Kihlström of The Agile Brand – and is number 456 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 Greg Kihlström, author and Principal at GK5A, who advise organisations on customer experience, marketing technology, and digital transformation initiatives. He is also the host of The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström podcast. Greg joins me today to talk about his new book: House of the Customer - A blueprint for one-to-one, customer-first, employee-driven business transformation, customer journey orchestration, his own podcast and a bunch of other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Imagine having to type a ticket using a gaming console – Interview with Tony Adams of Supercell – and is number 455 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 Tony Adams, Product Manager at Supercell, the global gaming company based in Helsinki, Finland. Tony joins me today to talk about Player Experience (PX), the specific challenges that entails, the GiG metric, the horrific thought of having to type a ticket using a gaming console, the commoditisation/dehumanisation of the agent and why we should organize around a skill-based model .......amongst other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – What the heck is Relative Attractiveness and why it matters? – Interview with Richard Hammond of Uncrowd – and is number 454 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 Richard Hammond, co-founder and CEO of Uncrowd, the innovative enterprise SaaS experience analytics platform that helps organisations grow market share by revealing their Relative Attractiveness versus competitors. Richard joins me today to talk about Friction/Reward, the last three years, how their thinking has evolved, Relative Attractiveness and how RA can help organisations understand their NPS and CSAT outcomes. This is also the 12th anniversary episode of my podcast. Richard is a friend of the podcast and a contributor to my latest book, Punk XL. Disclaimer: I made a small investment in Uncrowd at their seed stage. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Customer journey orchestration made easy – Interview with Mark Smith of CSG – and is number 453 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