CX Files

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...

Mark Davies featured on this podcast last year when he was at PA Consulting. He recently joined Hunch, a strategic innovation consulting practice based in London - his own focus is strategic innovation. In this episode we catch up with Mark again to explore how innovation is closely connected to the customer journey and experience. Philip Clarke, the founder and managing partner at Hunch joins the...

This is another emergency episode of CX Files focused on how people in the CX industry are reacting to the Covid-19 coronavirus. In this episode, John Devlin, founder and CEO of Ascensos talks about how his company has quickly switched to a work from home model. https://www.ascensos.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-devlin-ascensos-4731521/

Jim Farnsworth is one of the leading experts on designing work at home CX solutions globally. Based in Denver, Colorado, Jim is the EVP for Business Development at SYKES. In this episode, Jim gives an update on how SYKES has handled the crisis and what CX executives need to do right now and as we start pulling through the immediate crisis - how will their team need to change? https://www.sykes.com...

BONUS EPISODE: Rob van Herpen is the Chief Customer Officer and North America General Manager of 5CA. 5CA is a CX specialist, based in the Netherlands. 95% of the 5CA workforce works from home so I called Rob to ask for advice on how this works and what advice he would give to managers who need to urgently get their team working from home. Feel free to contact Rob directly if you feel that you cou...

Annette Franz is the founder of CX Journey and author of a recently published book titled 'Customer Understanding.' She is based in Orange County CA and is well known internationally as a leading CX expert. She leads CX workshops, coaches individuals or teams, consults and speaks at major conferences. On the podcast Annette explores the themes in her book, especially focusing on customer journey m...

This analyst discussion recorded on March 18, 2020 explores some of the CX industry issues regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. What do you need to do to maintain your CX?   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.linkedin.com/in/st...

Andrew Hall is the Director of Strategic Engagement at Webhelp UK. He just recently joined Webhelp from Capgemini, where he was the head of innovation for customer engagement. Andrew is responding in this podcast to the recent episode on 'Emotive CX' featuring Martin Hill-Wilson. Andrew defends the use of automation and innovation, but also emphasises how to retain the human touch. https://www.lin...

Ian Golding is the executive director, knowledge and academics, at The Customer Institute, an independent not for profit institution focused on best practice in customer experience.  Ian is a well known global speaker and adviser on CX - he was recently ranked the #2 most important CX influencer in the UK by CX magazine and he can often be found jetting around the world to deliver keynotes and run...

Jeff Toister founded Toister Performance Solutions in 2005 to help companies improve employee performance. The company focuses exclusively on helping companies develop customer-focused cultures . Jeff is based in San Diego, CA. In this episode Jeff talks about metrics, building great relationships and the one big mistake behind every failed CX strategy.   https://www.toistersolutions.com/ https://...

Michael Valdsgaard was until recently the senior VP of digital transformation at IKEA. He led the team that created the hugely successful IKEA Place app that allowed customers to see furniture in their home before they bought anything through the magic of Augmented Reality (AR). His new company, London Dynamics, is on a mission to help retailers use AR more effectively to improve CX. https://www.l...

Neil Rae is the Chief Customer Officer of VXI Global Solutions. The company HQ is Los Angeles, although Neil is based in Toronto. With 43 global locations from the west coast of the US to the Philippines, and over 35,000 employees they are a major player in designing CX solutions. In this edition of the podcast Neil talks about RPA and how VXI is moving from a walk to a run with automation. https:...

Adrian Swinscoe is an adviser, writer, and speaker with a focus on CX and customer service. He writes regularly about CX in the business journal Forbes and he has published several books on CX, including Punk CX in 2019. In the podcast we explore Adrian's view on Punk CX and how to plan for a back to basics strategy. https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianswinscoe/ http://www.adrianswinscoe.com/

CX Files is about to become a book and the launch event will be in Las Vegas this coming June! See you there... CX Outsourcers https://knowledge-executive.com/product/cxo/ Mark Hillary https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhillary/

The CX Company has been designing chatbots and conversational AI systems for 15 years. Their software engages over 4 million customers every day.  Simon Foot is the UK and Ireland Director of The CX Company and he talked to me about the opportunities for chatbots and why there are so many disappointing chatbot implementations. https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonfoot/   https://www.cxcompany.com/