CX Files

Luuk Houtepen is the BD Director for SThree DACH and Chairman of APSCo Germany - The Association of Professional Staffing Companies. He is based in Munich. SThree is one of the largest global recruitment companies, focused primarily on technology and STEM. Luuk recently told me that the contact center industry has been hiring a lot more technology specialists - so in this edition of CX FIles I ask...

4,133 Participants 25 locations 7 countries What do they really think about working from home? Brian Kearney and Ted Nardin are the co-founders of 5th Talent. Their mission is to make work more meaningful, so they asked thousands of contact center workers what they really think about working from home. REPORT: https://bit.ly/wfh5thtalent www.5thtalent.com www.linkedin.com/in/briankearney-meaningfu...

Stephen Loynd is the principal analyst at TrendzOwl based in Arlington, Virginia. Last March he was on this podcast and he predicted 18-24 months of business disruption from the Covid-19 pandemic. It looks like he was right, so CX Files caught up with him again to talk about the New Normal. www.trendzowl.com/ www.linkedin.com/in/stephenloynd/

Brian Pritchard is the founder and CEO of LiveXChange Corporation, based in Toronto, Canada. His company offers a virtual contact centre solution - including agents. Brian believes that the New Normal is about more than just working from home - it also demands greater flexibility and new ways of working. The 9-5 in an office is dead. In the podcast be explains how LiveXchange handled the crisis an...

Robin Hoekstra is CEO at Outworx, based in Durban South Africa. Outworx focuses on CX and back office BPO solutions. Most of the coverage by analysts focusing on the 'New Normal' for CX after the Covid-19 pandemic focuses on the US and Europe. In this episode of CX Files we explore the African perspective and how a focus on technologies supporting human agents may be the transformation that will c...

Phil Jones is Senior VP for Strategic Business Development at Teleperformance UK and South Africa. He gave CX Files an advance look at a new white paper TP UK is publishing on how the CX industry is responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. It explores innovation, collaboration, and the New Normal. In the podcast Phil talks about the issues covered in the new white paper. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ph...

Graham Brown is the Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Hinduja Global Solutions, also know as HGS. He is based in the UK. I called Graham to ask him about the New Normal for BPO and CX - how can contact centres function in a world of social distancing? https://www.linkedin.com/in/graham-brown-7433891/ https://www.teamhgs.com/

Kathy Juve is the EVP, Customer Experience Technology & Insights Division, at Concentrix. She is based in Orlando, Florida. Kathy is focused on looking forward to the future of CX - especially looking how customers are behaving, emerging   technologies, and digital transformation. In this episode Kathy talks about the rush to digital transformation as a response to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemi...

Jerry Leisure is the CEO and founder of Officium Labs, based in Silicon Valley, California. Officium Labs has created a CX Marketplace that blends traditional BPO operators as partners with independent gig workers allowing them to offer a highly flexible CX service that has elements of the gig economy with more traditional CX. Jerry has been closely linked to the games industry so in this intervie...

Every year, Ryan Strategic Advisory publishes their list of the top 5 most favoured offshore contact centre delivery points. The 2020 Front Office Omnibus Survey,  is being announced by Peter Ryan simultaneously with the publication of this special bonus edition of the podcast - so if you can see this then the results are now public. In this episode Peter talks about the research and the top 5 loc...

Alistair Niederer is the North America CEO of Ember Group, based in Toronto. He has a long track record in CX having previously been CEO at Praxidia and almost 6 years as CEO at Teleperformance UK and South Africa. Alistair recently published a blog talking of a third wave of customer service and how working from home will be the new normal. In this episode he talks about the path to a new normal...

Rod Jones is a contact centre strategic adviser, industry analyst, and consultant. He is based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and he is something of a legend in the CX analyst circles.  Rod has spent 50 days in lockdown so far and has been using his time to call CX analysts and operators to ask about a path to the new normal. This episode features me (Mark Hillary) and is just a taster of the full...

Syamant Sandhir is Director of learning and technology at Futurescape, based in Gurgaon, India. Futurescape is focused on helping companies meet Environmental, Social and Governance goals (ESG), with a focus on how issues such as sustainability affect the customer experience. In this episode we explore CX and sustainability. https://www.linkedin.com/in/syamant/ https://www.futurescape.in/

Audrey William is a Principal Advisor at Ecosystm, based in Sydney, Australia. She recently published a research paper on the contact centre industry in 2019.  In this episode Audrey talks about contact centres, apps, personalisation, and the importance of great customer journey analytics. https://www.linkedin.com/in/audrey-william-3a4a04/ https://www.ecosystm360.com/

Marianne Rutz founded Rutz consulting over 20 years ago and she had advised companies such as Hertz, Thomas Cook, Ralph Lauren and Banco Santander. She is based in Stirling, in Scotland. Her focus is operational excellence for contact centres and she also hosts a podcast titled The Operational Excellence Show. I asked Marianne to tell me about some of the problems of trying to shift very quickly t...

Yoni Epstein is the founding chairman and CEO of itelBPO, based in Montego Bay, Jamaica. ItelBPO has become a leader in the nearshore BPO industry in recent years with a move into Mexico, the Bahamas, work from home agents in the USA itself, and a new centre under construction in St Lucia. I called Yoni at his home to catch up on the effect on his business, the nearshore market in general and what...

Mike Aoki founded Reflective Keynotes almost 20 years ago. The company is based in Toronto Canada and is focused on customer service and sales training as well as advisory work. Mike has a strong focus on helping teams to blend customer service with sales so in this episode we focused on some of the issues this can cause. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeaoki/ https://twitter.com/mikeaoki

Matt Sims is the founding director of 4t4Consult, based in the UK. Until last year he was the CEO of Teleperformance in the UK and South Africa. In this episode of the podcast Matt takes us on a journey from talking about the difficulties of an overnight pivot to a work from home strategy to the future new normal for the CX industry. https://4t4consult.co.uk/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-si...

Nic Marshall is the CEO of Res-Q, based in Hull in the UK. Res-Q is an owner-operated contact centre company with around 1,100 agents over two sites in the UK. In this episode of CX Files, Nic talks about Res-Q reacted to the crisis and where he sees the new normal in future. www.resqcs.co.uk https://www.linkedin.com/in/nic-marshall-67072111/

This analyst discussion recorded on April 6, 2020 explores some of the CX industry issues regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. What do you need to do now and how long will this last?   Peter Ryan (Canada) Principal, Ryan Strategic Advisory https://ryanadvisory.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-ryan-montreal/   Stephen Loynd (USA) Principal, Trendzowl https://www.trendzowl.com/ https://www.linkedi...

Brendan Kiely is the CEO and co-founder of ThinScale, based in Dublin, Ireland. ThinScale is one of the fastest growing technology companies in the areas of Windows thin client, desktop virtualization and server-based computing.  This technology is vital for building a secure work-from-home strategy and most of the major CX companies use ThinScale to deliver a work-at-home-agent (WAHA) solution. B...

Audrey William is a Principal Advisor at Ecosystm, based in Sydney, Australia. Before Ecosystem Audrey spent over 18 years at Frost and Sullivan so she is well known as an experienced and insightful industry analyst A few days ago Audrey published a blog on LinkedIn focused on BCP for contact centres. In the podcast she talks about the article and gives advice on BCP. https://www.linkedin.com/in/a...

Dave Rizzo is the APAC President of Teleperformance. He participated in a 45-min webinar on 31 March 2020 focused on the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic - hosted by Mark Hillary. This edition of CX Files is a short clip from the webinar. You can follow this link to hear the entire interview: https://ptdrv.linkedin.com/z68fjbm https://www.teleperformance.com/en-us/solutions/work-at-home https://www.l...

Pedro Lozano is the EMEA CEO of Sitel Group. Sitel has over 80,000 in their team across the world. Like other CX specialists they are currently in a race to move contact center agents into a work from home environment. In the podcast, Pedro talks about the immediate plans for Sitel, how he is advising clients, and what he sees as the new normal in 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/plozanodecastro/...

James Dodkins is better known as the CX Rock Star. He recently launched his Accredited CX Specialist (ACXS) course online. It's great timing as many people have some extra time on their hands at present. In this episode, James explains why the ACXS course is different to other CX accreditation. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesdodkins/ Rockstar CX: https://www.rockstar.cx/ ACXS Course: h...