Customerland

Cashback is having a quiet comeback and it’s not just about saving a few bucks. I sit down with Carrie Paradas, North American GM at ShopBack, to unpack how a cashback and rewards platform can tap into something much bigger: emotion, identity, and the daily habits that actually drive customer loyalty. We start with the bold move that put ShopBack on the US map: a partnership with the University of...

Hitting “publish” used to feel routine. Now, when a prompt writes the first draft, that button can feel like a gamble. We sit down with Matt Blumberg, CEO of Markup AI, to talk about what’s really happening inside enterprise content teams as large language models crank out documentation, support articles, and marketing copy faster than humans can reliably review it. Matt lays out a simple framing...

AI shopping agents are about to rewrite the rules of retail, and the scary part is simple: your brand can lose without ever getting a chance to persuade a human. We dig into that reality with Talbott Roche, CEO and president of Blackhawk Network, and it quickly becomes clear why “gift cards and kiosks” is an outdated way to think about what Blackhawk actually does. Under the hood, this is branded...

Gift cards look simple from the outside, but the machinery behind them is turning into one of the most useful building blocks in modern rewards and fintech. We talk with Alex Preece, CEO of Tillo, about why the “gift card” label can be misleading and how these products function as branded currency that customers already know how to use. When you combine that familiarity with digital delivery and A...

Shopping is turning into a conversation, and that changes what “good UX” even means. We sit down with Purvi Shah, Senior Vice President, User Experience at Target, to unpack how user experience works when it’s not just an app or a website, but an enterprise-wide system that touches millions of guests and hundreds of thousands of team members. We get concrete about the daily craft behind human-cent...

The sale isn’t the finish line. It’s the moment you hand your relationship to shipping networks, support queues, return policies, and whatever happens when a real human has a real problem with their order. I’m joined by Andrew Schmid, Chief Product Officer at Route, to dig into why post-purchase is still the most underbuilt part of ecommerce and why it’s quickly becoming the place where profit and...

Loyalty isn’t a punch card anymore, and it definitely isn’t just repeat purchases. We’re chasing a tougher standard: loyalty of choice. That’s the kind of customer loyalty that shows up when someone sticks with you even when a competitor is cheaper, closer, faster, or simply more convenient and when they come back after you’ve had a service failure or a product miss. I’m joined by Jaclyn Wands, VP...

A retailer can spend millions driving traffic to a website and still quietly shut out customers at the exact moment that matters most: browsing, adding to cart, and checkout. That’s the uncomfortable truth behind web accessibility, and it’s why we sat down with Imogen Wethered, CEO of EnableAll, to talk about accessibility as a real driver of conversion, loyalty, and long-term growth, not a side p...

“Deflection is dead” is a bold claim, but after this conversation it’s hard to argue. I’m joined by Pasquale DeMaio , VP of Amazon Connect Customer at AWS, to talk about why the future of customer service isn’t a shinier contact center dashboard. It’s customer AI that improves outcomes for the customer and also for the humans doing the work, from agents to managers to the business leaders responsi...

Your next grocery “deal” might not be a discount at the register and that’s exactly why it works. We sat down with Sean Turner, co-founder and CTO of Swiftly, to unpack the real mechanics behind digital promotions that change behavior in brick-and-mortar grocery and convenience stores, from customer acquisition to retail media monetization. We get specific about how retailers can find and bring ba...

What if AI could design your business in minutes—and still pass audit? We sit down with Pega CEO Alan Trefler to unpack how Blueprint uses generative AI to reimagine complex processes while preserving the predictability enterprises demand. Instead of asking models to improvise outcomes at run time, Blueprint captures objectives, proposes stages and data flows, and feeds a best-in-class workflow an...

Want proof that churn isn’t the end of the story? We sit down with Recurly’s Chief Product Officer, Priya Lakshminarayanan, to explore how pause states, micro subscriptions, and one‑click plan changes are rewriting the rules of subscriber loyalty. Drawing on network‑wide data from millions of users, Priya explains why nearly one in four new subscriptions comes from a former customer and how 75% of...

Customers don’t churn all at once—they leave through a thousand small cuts. We sit down with Katie Costanzo, President of CX at CSG, to unpack how leading brands are closing those gaps with real-time decisioning, smarter use of billing and journey data, and disciplined deployment of agentic AI. If clarity, empathy, and credibility feel scarce in your customer experience, this conversation offers a...

What if the antidote to career burnout isn’t a new job, but a new structure? We sit down with Ruth Stevens - B2B marketing veteran, educator, and globe-trotting “academic tourist” - to unpack how a portfolio career can turn chaotic consulting into a resilient, joyful life. Ruth walks us through the system she built: teaching that provides rhythm and community, paid writing and research that moneti...

Shoppers aren’t average anymore—and our stores shouldn’t be either. We dig into why treating each location as a living ecosystem beats blanket strategies, especially when consumer signals are split between cautious and confident spending. With Justine Melman, CMO at Optimum Retailing, we explore how connected data and AI-powered planograms turn messy, stressful environments into calm, intuitive sp...

Forget churning out more content; the real advantage now is coaching intelligent systems to deliver work that still feels unmistakably human. We sit down with Johann Wrede, CMO of UserTesting, to unpack why the modern marketing leader must operate like a business generalist, not a channel specialist—and how AI raises the floor on execution while threatening to flatten differentiation. Johann trace...

The excitement around agentic AI is loud, but the real story starts where hype meets accountability. We sit down with Eric Karofsky, CEO of Vector HX, to separate narrow task agents from agentic systems that plan, reason, and negotiate across steps—and to ask the uncomfortable question: who do you trust when your agent starts talking to someone else’s agent? Eric walks us through the gaps leaders...

The future of retail isn’t just about shiny tech on the sales floor; it’s about the unseen engine that makes every experience feel effortless. With Verizon Business’s Katie Riddle, we unpack how sensorized products, unified IoT platforms, and edge AI are transforming inventory accuracy, employee workflows, and the shopper journey—while forcing retailers to rethink bandwidth, security, and the true...

What happens when retail stops waiting for shoppers to arrive and starts responding to every signal in real time? We dive into a candid, practical look at how AI is reshaping the entire customer journey—from discovery sparked in chat interfaces to fulfillment choices optimized for margin and sustainability. With SAP Customer Experience leader Balaji Balasubramanian, we unpack the systems, data, an...

A grocery cart that acts like a high-performing media channel sounds bold, until you hear how it actually works. We sit down with Yaniv Zukerman, CMO at Cust2Mate, to unpack how a retrofit smart cart platform turns the physical aisle into an addressable, measurable environment where shoppers get guidance, retailers unlock new revenue, and brands finally see real attribution at the shelf. We start...

The most valuable loyalty program isn’t a points card—it’s a living system that knows each shopper, adapts in real time, and proves it can drive incremental spend. We sit down with Jeff Baskin, Chief Revenue Officer at Eagle Eye, to unpack how unified commerce and true one-to-one personalization are reshaping grocery, convenience, and hospitality. Instead of stitching tools together, Jeff explains...

Fraud doesn’t just show up as a stolen card anymore—it arrives as coordinated global operations and as “friendly” misuse from customers who otherwise look perfect on paper. We sit down with Armen Najarian, CMO at Sift, to unpack how merchants can block the bad without breaking the checkout flow for everyone else. From account takeovers and identity theft to policy abuse and return gaming, Armin ex...

If you’ve felt the creep of “good enough” in your marketing, you’re not imagining it. We dig into why plausible outputs are everywhere, how AI accelerates the trend, and what it takes to compete on strategic value when leaders only lean in for metrics tied to money. With Andrew Schulkind of Andigo, we get candid about the gap between process metrics and business metrics, the lure of “ornamentrics,...

Think your customers are loyal? Our data-backed dive suggests otherwise. We sit down with Cardlytics to unpack why non-loyal shoppers often deliver outsized gains and how commerce media—powered by first-party transaction data—can transform media spend into measurable loyalty. From banks to retailers to CPGs, we trace how card-linked offers (CLO) connect incentives to outcomes and deliver immediate...

The customer isn’t just human anymore. Agents are already learning our preferences, comparing offers, and making choices that used to hinge on emotion and brand memory. We sat down with Ben Wiener, global head at Cognizant Moment, to unpack how this rewires the entire go-to-market stack—from data foundations to creative expression—and why marketing plus IT has effectively become the business. We d...