CX Files

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...

Peter Zaitsev is the founder and CEO of Percona, based in the US. Percona designs, supports, and advises on databases. They help companies manage data and keep it safe. This episode was inspired by the recent Capital One hack, where personal details of over 100m customers was compromised. Peter talks about keeping customer data safe, GDPR, Cambridge Analytica, and much more...   https://www.linked...

Alistair Niederer is the CEO of Egeria Insights, a recently formed company launched by the Resolver Group, the leading complaint and dispute resolution organisation in the UK. Egeria Insights is focused on helping companies understand how to manage customer conflict and even predict it.   In the podcast, Alistair explains the importance of managing customer conflict well and how complaining custom...

In this episode of the podcast we are exploring the perception and reality of working in different global locations after the news this week that airlines such as BA and Lufthansa are not flying to Cairo because of "security concerns." How do executives working in BPO and CX separate perceived risk from reality? Steve Weston and Peter Ryan discuss the Egypt problem and also explore other locations...

NOTE: Sound quality is below usual in this episode thanks to the conferencing system we were using having a 'muddy' effect on the sound - apologies... lesson is to call direct, not through conference lines :-( Alan Graham is the Chief Commercial Officer at Mindpearl, based in Cape Town, South Africa. Mindpearl was born in 1999 when a consortium of 11 European airlines decided they needed a better...

Felix Serrano is the co-founder and CEO of Activus Connect. The company is a certified women and minority-owned customer engagement organisation and they are operating across all of the continental US and Puerto Rico - based out of Orlando, Florida. Activus Connect is building a new platform for customer experience services modelled on the gig economy. In this episode, Felix explains how this can...

Robert Allman is the Group Senior Vice President for Customer Experience at Dimension Data.  Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Dimension Data operates all over the world managing and consulting on technology and they have a strong focus on CX and customer analytics.  Each year for the past 22 years, Dimension Data has published their annual Global CX benchmarking report - this is one of those r...

Ved Sen is a Digital Evangelist at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). He is focused on digital strategy, acceleration and innovation and from his base in London he advises TCS clients on how to utilise new innovations, platforms, and business models. Ved is also the author of a book titled Doing Digital, Connect, Quantify, Optimise - a guide to digital innovation and strategy for non-technical manag...

Evan Jones is the CIO of Youth Employment Accelerator, Harambee, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also the National Board Chairman of BPeSA, promoting and advising the wider BPO industry in South Africa. In this episode of CX Files Evan talks about Impact Sourcing and how CX can be used to create employment and change lives across Africa, and beyond.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/evanjone...

  Shai Berger is the CEO and co-founder of Fonolo, a technology company based in Toronto, Canada. Fonolo manages call-backs for contact centres eliminating the need for customers to wait on hold. In this podcast Shai explains how a simple change can have a dramatic effect on CX. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaiberger/ https://fonolo.com/  

Rod Jones is a contact centre legend. Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, he has consulted and advised on contact centres for over 40 years. Contact Centre Helper magazine once called him the most trusted contact centre advisor *globally*. His work takes him all over the world both to work with clients and to speak about his experience at conferences. Rod recently mentioned to me that there are a...

Srikanth Iyengar is the Group CEO for Europe of Conduent, a major international business process service company with expertise in digital platforms and a technology-focused approach to customer experience. In our conversation Srikanth talks about the evolution of customer service away from the contact centre to a world of data analytics and technology platforms and what this means for the partner...

Steve Jones is the Head of Insights and Data for Capgemini North America. He has a background managing both AI and Big Data for Capgemini and is a leading global expert on how companies use data for insights and improved CX. In this episode of CX Files he talks about using data insights to create great CX and the effect of emerging tech such as facial recognition. He also explores the ethics of in...

Mark Davies is a business design expert at PA Consulting with a focus on customer disruption and also author of a recent study titled Customer 4.0. This research explores different demographic groups and how different behaviours are making modern customers extremely complex. In this episode we explore some of the findings from the Customer 4.0 research - in particular why brands just don't underst...