CX Files

Neal Topf is the founder and President of Callzilla. He is based in Miami, Florida. Callzilla is a CX specialist based in the US, but also with delivery centers in Colombia and South Africa. Peter Ryan called Neal for a conversation about corporate culture - in particular culture inside the BPO environment. Neal recently posted on LinkedIn that a prospective client was impressed with the Callzilla...

Peter has recently been touring Asia, including some time meeting CX and BPO experts in the Philippines. Mark called Peter in Tokyo to talk about his recent time in the Philippines. What is going on in CX over there right now and do they need to reinvent their approach to communications and promoting what they can do?  When will we see Philippines BPO 2.0? https://www.ibpap.org/ https://ryanadviso...

The CX Alliance is a brand new CX trade association launched in September 2024 in the UK. It is being launched by Karen Howard, MD of The Retail Bulletin (TRB) and the partnership director of the CXA is Isobel Rogers. They aim to publish information, research, and host events all focused on various aspects of CX. Mark Hillary talked to Isobel and Karen to find out more about how this initiative go...

Graham Brown is the SVP EMEA Sales for Alorica. He is based at Leicester in the UK. In some parts of the world, like Europe, brands need to offer a customer experience in many different languages. For major languages this is not a problem. It's relatively easy to find French and English speakers, but some languages can be hard to support and often they are not even economic to support.  What if yo...

This week we have two guests rather than the usual one! Chris Gillen is the CEO of A Closer Look. He is based just outside Atlanta, Georgia. Stephen Loynd is the founder and Principal Analyst at TrendzOwl. He is based in Virginia, just across the Potomac from Washington DC. Both of these leading thinkers have spoken before at the CX Outsourcers conference about how AI is changing the CX industry....

Michael Clark is the founder of CXTT Consulting. He is based in Sydney, Australia. Michael has been recognised in 2023 in the Top 100 Contact Centre Influencers in APAC, and in 2022 as a Top 50 Small Business Leader. Peter Ryan called Michael to talk technology and the tech stack required to make modern CX processes work well. We all know that multiple types of technology have become important for...

Once you are into CX, you never leave... this summarises how Martin Anderson explains the journey he has taken over the past 21 years building the Lemon Contact Centre near to Durham in the north-east of the UK. Peter Ryan talks to Martin about the entrepreneurial nature of BPO and CX, how he got started, and how he manages to compete in a business where the competition can be both local and globa...

Jonas Berggren is the Head of Global Accounts EMEA at Transcom. He is also a member of the Transcom EMEA management team. He is based in Stockholm, Sweden. Jonas has a long history designing customer experience processes, but he is also well known as an innovative thought leader. He publishes a popular LinkedIn newsletter titled "Transform Customer Service" that explores the future transformation...

Leo Lopez is the co-founder and principal consultant at Calltastic, an advisory firm focused on helping startups and small businesses. He is based in Los Angeles, California.  Leo has over 30 years experience in contact center operations and he is now using this expertise to help startups improve their customer service processes. In this conversation with Peter Ryan he outlines the top five mistak...

FormIGA was launched in London in June this year. It's the Industry for Good Alliance for technology and business services and is a joint venture between the IAOP and the GSA. Alistair Niederer heads up the ESG initiatives for the GSA so he talked to Mark Hillary about what this new alliance is doing and how it is more than just another industry body publishing white papers on ESG... https://www.l...

Stephen Peattie is a Director at Kinetic GB and HybridWorkSmart. He is based near to Leicester, in the UK Midlands. Daniel Castilla is the co-founder and MD of Alliance BPO Services. He is based in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. Daniel and Stephen both visited Fiji on a recent mission to explore current and potential BPO and CX services from Fiji. Fiji is a small island nation of around one million p...

Leigh Hopwood is the CEO of CCMA (Call Centre Management Association) and Chair of the European Customer Contact Alliance. She is based in London, UK. Peter recently attended a CCMA event in Manchester focused on the buy-side - the companies that need to create their own CX team or buy in expertise from a specialist BPO. He called Leigh to talk about the event and to discuess what buyers are reall...

Sandra Busy is the Chief Executive Officer of Cnect Waies. Cnect Wales, (formerly The Welsh Contact Centre Forum), is Wales' premier networking organisation for   business in Wales operating centralised services. They represent Wales and promote greater investment in BPO and CX in Wales. The British general election is taking place as this episode arrives on July 4th so Peter talked to Sandra abou...

Alexandra da Silva Rodrigues has many years experience designing and supporting CX in various major hotel groups. She is now the Global Head of Reservations and Customer Services at Generator & Freehand hotels. Alexandra is based in Barcelona, Spain. Mark Hillary called Alexandra to talk about CX in hotels generally, but with a focus on the multilingual challenges this presents when supporting cus...

Andreas Helland is the CEO & Co-Founder at Atender Group. He is based in Bergen, Norway. Atender Group is based in Norway, but has their main operational facility in Málaga, Spain. Andreas talked to Peter Ryan about how a company that mostly serves customers in the Nordics region manages to do this from a sunny location in Spain that is known to most Europeans as a vacation destination. https://ww...

Stephen Loynd is the founder and principal analyst at TrendzOwl. He is based in Virginia, close to Washington DC. Stephen has just published a new book this week. It's called "The Widening Turn: America & the Accelerating Sweep of Innovation." The book explores how new technologies, such as AI, are redefining work, culture, and our entire society. It also includes many observations on CX and how c...

Erin Broecker is the Senior Director for Global Content Strategy at Teleperformance. She is based in Sacramento, California. Erin is focused on content. How it is created and how it is published. She is endlessly thinking about how people within our industry learn about CX strategies. Erin plans which organizations Teleperformance can work with to create greater insights into the industry and how...

Michael Morrison is the Chief Revenue Officer at NCRI Inc. He is based in Toronto, Canada. Peter called Michael to talk about CX and BPO in Canada and how Canada has played a dual role as a nearshore BPO destination for the US as well as being an important market for customer service itself... come and listen to a discussion about the great white north! 🇨🇦🍁 https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-mor...

Aymen Ismail is the Head of Customer Engagement Solutions at smart Europe GmbH. He is based in Stuttgart, Germany.   The smart auto company was founded in Germany in 1994. The brand was originally famous for quirky small cars, such as the ForTwo. Now, the company is focused on EV production and battery technology.   The auto industry is surfing an extreme wave of change at present. Electric vehicl...

Seandette Wiltshire is the founder and director of strategy and operations at The Contact Hub. She is based in Christ Church, Barbados. The Contact Hub offers contact center and marketing services to companies in Barbados - and beyond. In this conversation with Peter Ryan, Seandette talks about creating a new BPO in Barbados and how the region is developing a growing reputation for the quality of...

Steve Mosser is the Group CEO & Chief Innovations Officer at Sensée. He is based in London, UK.  Sensée is a work-from-home specialist, but has recently purhased The Contact Company, in Liverpool UK. This more or less doubled their size, but means they now offer both contact center and WFH options. In this conversation, Steve focuses on the evolution of workforce management and flexible working pa...

CXOutsourcers 2024 took place on May 1/2 in Atlanta, GA. Both Mark Hillary and Peter Ryan were at the event. Mark talked to some of the speakers and delegates about their thoughts on what they experienced and learned from the event. This podcast features: Stephen Loynd, Founder and Principal at TrendzOwl https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenloynd/ Rod Jones, Founder Rod Jones Contact Center Consulti...

Chris Gillen is the CEO of A Closer Look. He is based very close to Atlanta, GA, so the CX Outsourcers conference is a local event for him. In this conversation he gave Mark Hillary a preview of his CXO keynote speech on CX and AI and keeping humans in the loop https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgillen/ https://a-closer-look.com/ https://cxoutsourcers.com/    

Alex Muñoz is CEO of the Hispanic Media Center in San Diego, CA. He is focused on advertising and marketing for the hispanic community in the USA. Alex talked to Mark Hillary from Mexico City about the importance of understanding the complex nature of the hispanic community in the US and not just assuming there is a broad need for an "English" customer experience and another in "Spanish"... Alex w...

Barry Winkless is the Chief Strategy Officer at Cpl Group & Head of the Future of Work Institute. He is based in Dublin, Ireland. Barry is speaking at the CX Outsourcers conference in Atlanta on May 1/2. In this conversation with Mark Hillary he gives a preview of his keynote talk about making companies - and countries - more attractive locations for investment and improving the ability to attract...