Doing Customer eXperience Right‬ In The AI Era | Stacy Sherman

Did you know replacing one employee can cost up to a third of their salary? That expense begins long before anyone quits, and it traces back to how you hire, train, and treat staff behind the scenes. Those decisions then determine how your frontline handles every customer who contacts you by phone, email, chat, or in person. Back-office professionals often hear an angry buyer or see a lost sale an...

Episode first aired in 2024. The actionable recommendations apply even more today! What if your team took full accountability for every customer experience? Could shifting from blame to ownership be the key to lasting loyalty? In this episode of Doing CX Right℠, host Stacy Sherman engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Robert J. Hunt, a leader with extensive experience in running CEO pee...

Episode first aired in Dec 2025. The actionable recommendations apply even more today! What's the best leadership advice you've ever received or given? For her 200th episode of Doing CX Right, host Stacy Sherman shares a curated collection of the most memorable and actionable leadership wisdom from the show's renowned guests. Consider this a masterclass in leading with influence, featuring insight...

Companies often focus on designing logical, frictionless transactions, but customers base their loyalty on emotion. This fundamental disconnect is driving customer loss. The latest data proves it, and this episode reveals exactly what to do to shift the trend at your workplace. Across the U.S., customer experience scores recently hit historic lows after four straight years of decline. While 2026 s...

Did you know there's an international Customer Experience (CX) Day and Customer Service Week dedicated to celebrating the people who create great experiences? Many companies overlook them or treat them as simple gestures, but they can be powerful opportunities to unite teams, build loyalty, and strengthen company culture through meaningful, practical actions. In this episode of Doing CX Right®, St...

John Sileo lost his entire net worth and software business after his partner stole his identity, a devastating betrayal that inspired the Hollywood movie Identity Thief. While I sat in an audience of 1,000 people, he accessed my phone in under three minutes, proving how quickly human psychology can be manipulated to bypass security defenses. When protection fails, or identity verification feels pa...

Episode first aired in 2022. The actionable recommendations apply even more today! Being frictionless has become a strategic necessity. What does frictionless even mean? Why should you care? And, what are simple steps to remove customer pain points and get to a frictionless state based on learnings from the most reputable brands? In this replay episode of Doing CX Right℠, Stacy Sherman and author...

Companies are investing more in customer experience than ever before, yet many still struggle to retain customers and win new ones. That contradiction led me to ask a simple question: What is driving customer decisions today, and how can companies gain a sustainable competitive advantage? To answer it, I commissioned new research with Jason Ten-Pow of ONR EDGE, and this special Doing CX Right® epi...

This podcast was previously recorded in 2022. The actionable recommendations apply even more today! Can you imagine employees and customers loving your brand so much that they'd consider or actually get a tattoo of the company logo? Hard Rock Cafe has documented cases of this happening among both staff and guests, and it is not a marketing stunt. It is the result of a specific, repeatable approach...

Previously recorded in 2023. The actionable recommendations apply even more today! Customer experience teams are deploying chatbots and AI assistants earlier in the service journey because leadership wants faster resolution and lower cost per contact. That shifts more first interactions to automated flows. Customers are encountering decision-tree prompts instead of human conversation. That produce...

Previously recorded in 2022. The actionable recommendations apply even more today! Have you heard about CX Day? Every October, people worldwide celebrate with their employees, agents, and clients. It reminds me of "Mother's Day" or "Father's Day." It's a time to intentionally celebrate and express gratitude to the people who matter in our lives. It doesn't mean we stop appreciating people on all o...

Most leaders assume their customers won't leave as long as the price is fair and the service works. Michelle Musgrove of Washington Gas and I agree that is a dangerous assumption. A customer with no other option is not the same as a loyal one. Confuse the two: the process keeps serving the company instead of the customer, nobody follows up directly, and the first real alternative wins them over. S...

Most companies think investing in the latest technology will set them apart. While AI handles simple, routine inquiries, Nate Spears of ClearSource explains why software alone fails to deliver: everyone now has access to the exact same tools. As automation takes over basic tasks, frontline agents are left to manage complex, stressful customer interactions that require genuine human skill. So what...

What can you do to be an unforgettable company that customers continue to buy from and rave about to others? What are ways to lead and unite your organization that would "Make Mom Proud?" In this episode of Doing CX Right®, host Stacy Sherman talks with Jeanne Bliss about these topics, including the value of goal mapping versus journey mapping to be an unforgettable customer-centric company, workf...

Are you struggling to keep up with rapid tech changes in customer service while maintaining a human touch? Wondering how to integrate AI without losing your team's trust or overwhelming customers? In this episode of Doing Customer Experience Right, host Stacy Sherman and CX expert David Singer, Global VP at Verint, share answers to these questions, plus strategies for balancing advanced AI with ge...

Is "service fatigue" plaguing your teams and negatively impacting the customer experience? Do you need motivation and practical strategies to refresh and refuel your customer service approach? In this episode of Doing CX Right, host Stacy Sherman is joined by Speaker Hall of Famer Laurie Guest. Together, they unpack the concept of "service fatigue" and its damaging ripple effects across the custom...

Most companies are rushing to layer AI onto customer operations without fixing what sits underneath. Deb Ashton of Certinia says that's the wrong order. When sales, delivery, finance, and customer success work from separate systems with different views of the same customer, AI doesn't close those gaps; it amplifies them. Clients feel the disconnect as friction: repeating themselves across departme...

What does it take to create extraordinary experiences that make customers happier and tell others? Stacy Sherman and featured guest Mark Sanborn reveals proven principles to consistently deliver positive emotion and go beyond the ordinary. You'll learn the 4 principles from his book, "The Fred Factor" focussed on a real-life postal carrier who made a difference. You'll discover how to reinvent, bu...

Most companies view their customer service team as a cost to reduce. Lisa Oswald at TravelZoo says that is precisely the wrong instinct. When you see the people who communicate with customers all day as an expense, you stop understanding why customers are dissatisfied, continue doing what frustrates them, and lose their business without ever realizing the real reason. By the time it appears in you...

Are you struggling to engage your employees to consistently deliver customer excellence? Are company silos getting in your way of aligning teams and exceeding business goals? If yes, this episode will be incredibly valuable to you as host Stacy Sherman and renowned HR industry expert and author Josh Bersin unveil the secrets of the world's most enduring employee-focused organizations. You'll gain...

Most companies are rushing to deploy AI faster than their competitors. Alvin Stokes of Princess Cruises says that is exactly the wrong instinct. Speed without emotional intelligence does not create better guest experiences. It creates tools your frontline team will not use, prototypes your customers will not trust, and revenue you will not recover. Alvin has spent two years inside one of the most...

Most leaders think they are delivering a great customer experience. Pierre Charchaflian of IBM says they are delivering yesterday's version. The new standard is not fixing problems when customers report them. It is knowing about the problem before the customer does, and solving it before they have to ask. That shift, from reactive to anticipatory, is what separates the brands that customers stay l...

Your contact center agents are not the only people responsible for your customer experience. Every person in your company who touches a product, a process, or a decision is shaping how your customer feels about your brand, whether they realize it or not. Chris Morrissey, General Manager of Customer Experience at Zoom, calls this horizontal CX, and it starts with one question every leader should be...

Most loyalty programs are designed around rewards: points and discounts that give customers a reason to return. That design produces a specific problem. When the incentive expires or another brand matches it, the customer accepts the offer and does not return. The companies that retain customers year over year treat loyalty as a relationship, not a transaction. Most companies have not made that sh...

Imagine you are enjoying dinner at a high-end restaurant, almost finished with the appetizer, when you notice a long strand of hair mixed into the food. What would you expect the restaurant to do? Well, this really happened. In this solo episode of Doing CX Right, host Stacy Sherman shares that experience, plus a second restaurant mistake that led to a very different outcome. Both businesses had a...