CX Files

The Ryan Strategic Advisory annual BPO survey will be published next month - featuring the most desirable global BPO locations. In this preview Peter Ryan talks to Lian Rowlands from Conversations by Ami (UK), Dave Rumble from The Knowledge Group (UK), and CX analyst Jesús Hoyos (USA) on what makes a great post-Covid BPO destination. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lian-rowlands-a26119/ https://www.me...

Randy Arellano has a long history in CX - he has worked at several of the major CX suppliers. In 2018 he joined Auxillium with the mission of making high quality CX available to smaller companies and start ups. His mission was to take the standards and processes used by the big players and to apply this to smaller projects. In this episode, Randy describes how he managed to achieve this goal and h...

Stuart Ravens founded Corax Insights in London at the start of 2021, but he has a long history as an industry analyst (Navigant and Ovum) focused on energy and utilities. In this episode of the podcast, Stuart talks about the transition to renewable energy and the relationship between energy companies and their customers - do energy companies even think about the customer experience at all? https:...

William Carson is the director of market engagement at Ascensos. He is based in London and away from Ascensos he is also a frequent CX commentator and council member of the GSA. Ascensos has a strong focus on retail CX so in this episode CX Files talks to William about the failure of department stores and the dramatic rise of brands such as Shein, BooHoo, and Asos. How does CX work in a modern ret...

Jim Farnsworth is a veteran of the CX industry. He is currently an Executive Vice President at SYKES and is well known as one of the leading thinkers in the business. He is based in Denver, Colorado. In this interview, Jim talks about the adaptation of CX and contact centers and how modern CX needs to embrace the role of the agent - they are on the frontline and they are the experts. https://www.l...

Ted Nardin and Brian Kearney founded research and advisory firm 5th Talent and are based in the US. During the Covid-19 pandemic they asked 4,000 contact center agents about their WFH experience. Now they are back with new research focused on what CX leaders have learned and need to know about WFH. https://www.5thtalent.com/work-at-home-study-november-2020 https://www.5thtalent.com/post/what-leade...

Nate Brown is the Chief Experience Officer at Officium Labs and the co-founder of the CX community CX Accelerator. He is based in Nashville Tennessee. In this episode, Nate talks about the people who work in CX. How do we fix the "minimum wage" reputation of CX and how do companies attract the best talent and start treating them like experts? https://www.officiumlabs.io/ https://www.linkedin.com/i...

GigCX is often compared to traditional contact centers or BPO, but there is an opportunity to re-think how customer service is designed throughout the entire customer journey. Megan Neale is co-founder and COO of Limitless Technology, based in London. She explains how the Limitless platform works and how we need to re-think GigCX and what it can offer. www.linkedin.com/in/meganneale-belimitless ww...

Victor van Baal is the GTM lead and MD of Qelp at Sykes Digital Services (SDS) and Amahl Williams is a director of SDS. Victor is based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Amahl is based just outside of Boston, Massachusetts in the US. In this episode we focused on post-Covid digital transformation, innovation, and automation - including RPA. www.linkedin.com/in/amahlwilliams www.linkedin.com/in/v...

In this final 2020 episode of CX Files, we brought together some leading CX experts and analysts to look at the key trends in 2020 and what might happen in 2021. Featuring: Marianne Rutz, founder of Rutz Consulting https://www.linkedin.com/in/marianne-rutz-351b0a5/ https://rutzconsulting.com/   Stephen Loynd, founder and principal analyst at TrendzOwl https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenloynd/ http...

Jonas Dahlberg is the CEO and President of Transcom. He is based in Stockholm, Sweden. Transcom has a team of over 26,000 people working across 22 countries using 33 languages. Jonas likes to say that they are big enough to really matter, but small enough to still listen to their clients. In this episode Jonas talks about BPO and CX in the post-covid environment - will contact centers change in 20...

Robèrt  van Diem is the Senior VP of Operations at 5CA, He is based in the Netherlands. Robèrt has a long history leading operations at companies including Xerox and Conduent before his present role at 5CA. 5CA is an almost exclusively work from home company so in this episode we explore how remote-first really works for 5CA. https://www.5ca.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob%C3%A8rt-van-diem/  

Ian Sanders has had a long career in events and ticketing, most recently as the Senior Commercial Director at Ticketmaster in the UK. Ian is based in Manchester. In this episode, Peter Ryan talks to Ian about how events companies can build close customer relationships and what may happen to the industry in a post-covid environment. Ian is also host of the Cold War Conversations podcast - one of th...

Paula Kennedy-Garcia is VP of Strategic Projects and Corporate Strategy at Concentrix. She leads the Concentrix Gig platform - Solv. In this episode, Paula gives an update on Solv, WFH, GigCX more generally, and what she is planning for 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/paula-kennedy-garcia-1b90b81/ https://www.solvnow.com/

Terry Rybolt is the Chief Revenue Officer at LiveXchange. He is based in Boston, MA. LiveXchange was one of the earliest Gig CX platforms and they continue to define the #GigCX environment. Terry recently co-wrote a book titled 'GigCX: Customer Service In The Twenty First Century' https://www.linkedin.com/in/terry-rybolt-808361/ https://livexchange.com/ http://j.mp/gigcx  

Shannon Burch is the Contact Center Director at Western Financial Group, based in Alberta, Canada. Shannon has deep experience of managing customer experience in Canadian financial service companies and she has managed CX in smaller high-growth companies AND large established banks. In this episode Shannon will talk about the difference between these types of organization and the differences in CX...

Scott Newman is the founder and CEO of Transparent BPO. He is based in Maryland, US, although Transparent has extensive operations in the Philippines and Belize.  In this episode, Scott talks about WFH going permanent, WFH security, and how smaller BPOs will build more CX resilience and agility for their clients in 2021. https://transparentbpo.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-newman-01381021...

Ahmed Refky is CEO of Raya Contact Center, based in Cairo, Egypt. In this edition we look at CX in Egypt and how the region has recovered from the Egyptian Revolution almost a decade ago. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmedrefky/ https://rayacc.com/

Andrew McNeile is the Chief Customer Officer of ThinScale Technology, based in Dublin, Ireland. ThinScale was recently mention on this podcast by Michael DeSalles of Frost & Sullivan. This episode is a follow-up and asks why BPOs are buying and shipping millions of dollars worth of laptops when they could use BYOD? www.linkedin.com/in/amcneile/ www.thinscale.com

Pratik Salia is the Senior Product Marketing Manager at Knowmax, based in Gurgaon, India. Knowledge Management is becoming a strong CX differentiator and Pratik has a unique insight with his product being used now in over 30 countries. In this discussion with Peter Ryan he explores the importance of KM to CX. https://www.linkedin.com/in/pratiksalia/ https://knowmax.ai/

Michael DeSalles is a Principal Analyst on the North American Customer Care team at industry analyst firm Frost & Sullivan. He recently published a paper exploring how the BPO and CX industry is reacting to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the podcast, he talks about this article and the CX road into 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-desalles-82519114/ https://www.frost.com/

Nearshoring has been a popular CX and BPO option for many years, but what about super-nearshoring from the border between the US and Mexico. Is there an advantage to be working right on the border? Hosted by Peter Ryan and featuring Jason Heil, Co-founder and VP of Business Development at Redial BPO and Anny Serrano, CEO, OneStar Solutions Inc https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-heil-56988616/ https...

In this episode we will hear from two BPO leaders focused on how the Philippines is recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic. Don Berryman  is the Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of  Transcom  North America. Mike Lytle , is the COO of Teleperformance in the Philippines  https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-lytle/ https://teleperformance.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/don-berryman/...

Emelie Hedén Edlund is a design director at McKinsey Design. She is based in Stockholm Sweden. Emelie is experienced in design thinking   and has a background in industrial design, trend forecasting and futurism as well as user and customer experience. She has been working with McKinsey on retail design and in this episode she talks about some of the changes we might expect in retail as we enter t...

Simon Knudsen is the CEO at Xzakt Kundrelation - a Transcom company. He is based in Stockholm, Sweden. Simon heads the FLEX model Transcom has recently launched. FLEX aims to offer GigCX-style flexibility inside the traditional contact center. Which is better? Listen to the podcast to hear Simon's view. https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-knudsen-03229428/ https://www.xzakt.com/ https://www.transcom...