CX Files

Helen Hickin is the founder and CEO of ICON Communication Centres, based in Prague in the Czech Republic. ICON is focused on CX, inside sales, and account management for B2B brands.

Most of the time when we focus on CX strategy we tend to focus on B2C - the end consumers - but B2B remains critically important and has also changed with the pandemic. In this edition, Peter Ryan talks to Helen about what has changed in B2B CX and what is coming next in this space...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-hickin/

https://www.theiconadvantage.com/

Michele Rowan is president of the WFH Alliance, an industry forum that organizes workshops, events and toolkits all focused on helping companies implement WFH programs. Michele is based in Dallas, Texas.

Michele has a background leading the customer contact team at Hilton Hotels and overseeing their own move into WFH agents.

In this episode we look beyond the pandemic to a business world where WFH is normalized.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michele-rowan-6006516/

www.WFHAlliance.com

Jeff Pappas is the EVP of Site Selection and Brokerage at ESRP, based in Dallas, Texas. Jeff has two decades experience helping companies select the best site for their business - including contact centers and BPO operations.

In this episode Jeff talks about the process involved in deciding where to locate a contact center and what might change in the post-pandemic era.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffpappas/

https://esrp.com/

Annelien Marcus is director and recruitment manager at Clarion People, based in London. In this episode she talks about the changing nature of CX recruitment and the skills needed to be a modern CX professional.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/annelienmarcus/

https://www.clarion-people.co.uk/

Miya Knights is the Director and publisher of Retail Technology, possibly the first dedicated retail technology trade journal in the UK. She is based in Brighton, in the UK.

Miya is also the global content strategist for Poq, a platform that enables retailers to build apps extremely quickly and she has written several books about the retail industry including one on omnichannel and one focused entirely on Amazon.

In this episode we discuss the future for retail in the new normal.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/miyaknights/

https://poqcommerce.com/

https://www.retailtechnology.co.uk/

Mark Hillary, from CX Files, published a new book this week (WFH: Securing The Future For Your Organization) co-authored with Andrew McNeile, the CCO of Thinscale Technology in Dublin, Ireland. Shelli Ryan, founder and CEO of Adhoc Communications in Las Vegas, Nevada, contributed the foreword.

In this CX Files Mark talks to Andrew and Shelli about the book and WFH in the post-pandemic environment.

http://j.mp/wfhbook2021

https://www.thinscale.com/

https://adhoccr.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelliryan/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amcneile/

Alistair Niederer is the EMEA head of TTEC. He is based in London in the UK.

Alistair has published several articles recently suggested that we need to redefine CX outsourcing - even dropping the term outsourcing. His argument is that CX requires orchestration, not outsourcing. CX suppliers should be genuine business partners.

In this episode of CX Files, Alistair takes some time to explain CX orchestration in more detail.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aniederer/

https://www.ttec.com/

ATAC is a Canadian based virtual service BPO. They have been a Canadian trailblazer since 2011 and have always focused on work-from-home (WFH) agents.

Tugs Smith is the co-founder of ATAC and in this episode of CX Files she talks about WFH both pre and post-pandemic and how ATAC quickly developed a certification program to improve the WFH recruitment process

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tugreofia-smith-a9a965a5/

https://www.atacinc.ca/

It's that time of the year again! Ryan Strategic Advisory asks hundreds of CX decision-makers every year to talk about their most favored locations for BPO and other trends affecting the marketplace. In this episode of CX Files, Peter talks about the top 5 global locations for BPO based on his research in 2021.

The Front Office BPO Omnibus Survey 2021 is being released live at exactly the same time as this edition of CX Files - be the first to hear Peter interviewed about the research results right here.

https://ryanadvisory.com

Simon Dillsworth is the UK Managing Director of Davies Consulting (Davies Group acquired Ember Group - you may have heard Simon a year ago on this podcast when he was with Ember).

In this episode, Simon talks about Intelligent Automation (IA) and Digital Transformation - especially in the post-Covid era. What is IA and how can it be used to improve customer loyalty?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-dillsworth-sd/

https://davies-group.com/