CX Files

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. He has taken some time off to go running and fishing, but now he is back in the CX market as an adviser. In the podcast he explains what his clients are looking for - both from the perspective of CX suppliers and their clients. https://4t4consult.co.uk/ h...

Martin Hill-Wilson is one of the best-known CX advisors from the UK. He has been training, advising, and mentoring CX leaders for decades now and his company Brainfood Consulting is presently focused on emotive CX for customer interactions. In this episode of CX Files Martin focuses on emotive CX and how we can avoid losing the human touch when planning customer interactions that use some automati...

James Dodkins is better known as the CX Rock Star. He blends music and business insight when helping companies improve their CX. Customer Experience magazine recently called him the #1 CX Influencer in the UK.  In this episode we discuss how companies need to change so they function more like a football team, how to hire the right people for great CX, and how to explore collaboration. https://www....

Gary Slade is the UK and South Africa CEO of Teleperformance. In over 30 years working in CX he believes that this is the most exciting time to be in the industry. In the interview Gary talks about security, offshoring, content moderation, innovation, and work at home agents - it's a real look ahead to CX trends in 2020! https://www.teleperformance.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyslade1/

Peter Ryan is the principal analyst at Ryan Strategic Advisory, based in Montreal Canada. Peter is well-known globally as a leading expert on CX and he is almost always on the road visiting companies all over the world. In this end of year episode Peter talks about 2019 and what to look for in 2020 - happy new year! https://ryanadvisory.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-ryan-montreal/

Stephen Loynd is the principal analyst at TrendzOwl, based in Washington DC. He is a well-known global CX commentator and in this episode he looks back at some key events in 2019 and predicts what to look for in the CX industry in 2020. https://www.trendzowl.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenloynd/  

Daniel Hong is VP & Research Director, Digital Customer & Collaboration Practice and Healthcare Practice at Forrester Research, based in San Francisco. In this episode Daniel explores his thoughts on RPA, AI, automation more generally, and how roles and responsibilities are changing in the CX environment. He also looks ahead to CX trends worth watching in 2020. http://forrester.com/ https://www.li...

John Devlin is the Founder and CEO of Ascensos. He is based in the UK and spoke to CX Files from his office in Romania. John talks about retaining the human touch in CX, even in the face of so many emerging technologies. He also explores retail CX, using RPA to reduce repetitive tasks in the contact centre, and how Amazon may change all our shopping habits with the Echo. https://www.linkedin.com/i...

Rachel Robinson is the Executive Vice President of Public Sector Services at Teleperformance, based in Bristol UK. Rachel recently published an opinion paper titled 'The Future For Government Contact Centre Services' and so in this episode we explore the difference between public sector bodies serving citizens and private sector companies servicing customers. Click on Rachel's LinkedIn here to acc...

BONUS EPISODE! Peter Ryan leads a conversation with Felix Serrano and Adrian Smith based on their recent visit to the BPESA Global Business Services Investor Conference in Durban.   Felix Serrano Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at Activus Connect https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixserrano3/ https://activusconnect.com/ Adrian Smith Chief Executive Officer / CEO of ATAC Inc. https://www.linkedin....

Colson Hillier is the Chief Marketing Officer at Alorica, based in New Jersey, US. Alorica is a global CX company with over 100,000 employees - the largest CX specialist based in the US. Colson talked on this podcast episode about the need to manage automation projects and digital transformation. https://www.linkedin.com/in/colsonhillier https://www.alorica.com

Nicky Pharaoh is the Managing Director and owner of The Learning Curve - a people assessment and development company focused on behavioural change inside companies. Nicky talks on the podcast about employee behaviour and how management structures can be applied inside customer service organisations. - what is changing in modern companies?  www.linkedin.com/in/nickypharoah/ www.tlcglobal.co/

Julian Burnett is Vice President of Global Markets in the Distribution Sector at IBM. He is an expert on the retail industry with senior experience in several retailers. Before IBM he was the CIO at House of Fraser, the CTO at John Lewis, and the CTO and Sainsbury's…  In the podcast, he talks about subscriptions, budget retail, Amazon, and the future for retail CX. www.linkedin.com/in/julian-burne...

Stephen Loynd is the founder and principal analyst at TrendzOwl. He is based in Washington DC and for many years he headed the digital transformation practice at Frost and Sullivan. In this episode, Stephen introduces TrendzOwl and explores the Fourth Industrial Revolution - how is technology changing society and forcing brands to rethink how they manage the customer experience? How can executives...

Dave Rizzo is the President of the Asia Pacific region for Teleperformance. The CX giant just launched their Teleperformance Innovation Experience Center (TIEC) in Silicon Valley California. In this episode, recorded in California, Dave explains the need for innovation in CX and why they launched the TIEC now. https://teleperformance.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-rizzo-7037763/

Sarah Burnett is EVP at Everest Group with a focus on digital systems, AI and automation. She is the chair of BCS (British Computer Society) Women, she founded the BCS AI Accelerator, and she is a tech mentor at Durham university helping women into careers in IT. Sarah recently published a research paper title the PEAK Matrix Assessment for RPA, assessing all the top Robotic Process Automation com...

Vit Horky is the founder of Brand Embassy, which was recently sold to NICE InContact, where he is the Senior Director of Digital Experience. Based in Prague, in the Czech Republic Vit is an author (Check the January episode about his book) and expert on CX. This episode was recorded in person in São Paulo - Vit explains what he is working on, the sale of the business to NICE, and some new work he...

Nicola Collister is the group COO at Woven, based in the north west of England. Woven is a customer service company that aims to focus on value creation rather than just cost reduction - as we know this is quite different from the usual pitch a customer service supplier makes. Nicola wrote a recent blog on LinkedIn where she said that the focus on the cost of customer service is killing innovation...

  Mark Angus is the CEO and Managing Editor of Knowledge Executive based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Knowledge Executive recently conducted research on behalf of the CX Blockchain Institute - featured here last week. In this episode, Mark talks about the new research and how CX executives can use blockchain. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-angus/ https://knowledge-executive.com/ https://www.cx...

Shelli Ryan is a co-founder and principal at the CX Blockchain Institute. This is a new organisation focused on exploring how CX can benefit from the use of blockchain. Shelli is based in Las Vegas. In the podcast she explains how blockchain can be a game changer for CX. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelliryan/ https://www.cxblockchain.org/

Ian Barkin is the Chief Strategy and Marketing Office at SYKES, based in Tampa, Florida. He has a long history in innovation and automation strategy and if you have taken an RPA course on LinkedIn then he probably wrote it. In the podcast Ian explores RPA, innovation, and the future development of customer experience processes where technology blends with more traditional human customer service. h...

Clinton Cohen is Managing Director of iContact BPO in Johannesburg, South Africa. He published a recent blog focused on the way recruitment is changing in CX and how agents need new skills to cope with emerging tech and multiple channels. In this episode, I ask him about the points he raised. Are we really about to see an end of contact centre attrition? If skills are increasing so fast in contact...

Ian Jacobs is a principal analyst at Forrester Research, based in San Francisco, California. His focus is customer service and digital transformation so he is well placed to comment on the way that brands are using technology to try improving CX. In this episode Ian explores automation, chatbots, smart speakers, and how to manage emotion in brand to customer interactions. https://www.forrester.com...

Paula Kennedy Garcia is the Vice President of strategic projects and corporate strategy at Concentrix, based in the UK. Paula manages the Solv project which is a Concentrix solution focused on working on a CX solution within the gig economy. In this edition of the podcast she explains how the gig economy works for CX and what it can offer to companies designing their customer service. https://www....

John Linkous is the Founder and Principal Adviser at Phalanx Security, based out of Baltimore in the US. He has a long track record as an expert on cyber crime so in this edition of the podcast we continued exploring the recent Capital One hack, but also looked at social networks and personalization. Can companies keep on collecting the personal data of their customers if they are not protecting i...