Today’s interview is with David McIntosh, who is VP and GM of Connected Stores at Instacart. David joins me today to talk about innovation in the retail space, why and how they are reaching into the physical retail domain, what they are up to, the benefits for both the customer and business and a look into the future of retail.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – If you aren’t fixing the bigger picture, then you are just putting a band-aid on the problem – Interview with Zig Serafin of Qualtrics – and is number 503 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

NOTE: Today’s episode is sponsored by Qualtrics, ahead of the annual gathering of experience leaders at Qualtrics X4 in London on June 6th. There you can hear about some of the best customer experience programmes from industry leaders and companies including Belron, Allianz and Adidas. You can register now at the Qualtrics website.

Today’s interview is with Zig Serafin, CEO at Qualtrics, the leading Experience Management software provider. I spoke to Zig at Qualtrics’ recent X4 event in Salt Lake City. We talked about Qualtrics’ vision, the highlights from the event, the XM Operating system, Qualtrics AI and the hundred different AI models that they have built, how they are empowering 43 out of 50 of the world’s largest brands to listen and then take action at scale and in real-time and the upcoming Qualtrics X4 EMEA event in London on June 6th.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – The Generative AI landscape: The good, the bad and the boring – Interview with Don Schuerman of Pega – and is number 502 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

NOTE: Today's episode is sponsored by Qualtrics, ahead of the annual gathering of experience leaders at Qualtrics X4 in London on June 6th. There you can hear about some of the best customer experience programmes from industry leaders and companies including Belron, Allianz and Adidas. You can register now at the Qualtrics website.

Today’s interview is with Don Schuerman, the CTO and Vice President of Product Strategy and Marketing at Pegasystems. Don joins me today to talk about the upcoming PegaWorld iNspire 2024 (PegaWorld is taking place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas from June 9th to the 11th and there is a money back guarantee!), what he’s most looking forward to at the event, the good and bad about the tech offerings out there in the market right now, and why it’s the “boring” use of AI that really will help enterprises work smarter and harder amongst other things.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – Episode 500: Some reflections on the last 13 years – and is number 501 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

In today’s episode of the Punk CX podcast, there is no interview.

Why?

Because today, I am celebrating the 500th edition of the podcast!

Woop! Woop!

Now, I thought long and hard about how to commemorate the occasion and how I might be able to use an interview format to do so. I did toy with the idea of having someone interview me but then didn’t get myself organised enough to arrange that.

So, you get me …… doing something new…..a monologue, if you like, where I share a few thoughts about my podcasting journey….so far.

So, dive in, and I hope you enjoy some of my reflections and highlights from the last 13 years and 500 episodes.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – Leadership, storytelling and why it is an art and it needs to be taught – Interview with Gareth Higgins – and is number 500 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Gareth Higgins, who writes and speaks about the power of storytelling to shape our lives and world, peace and justice, and how to take life seriously without believing your own propaganda. Gareth joins me today to talk about what makes a good story, whether good/effective storytelling be learnt, how people can start a journey towards being a better storyteller, what they should do to get started, and a simple but profound model for anyone who wants to build communities that promise mutual support, challenge, inspiration, protection and service to the common good.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – You don’t get promoted for teaching people how to wash their hands – Interview with James Lawther – and is number 499 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with James Lawther, Director at Squawk Point Consulting and Author of ‘Managed by Morons: The Path to a Thriving Organisation’. James joins me today to talk about his new book, why so many organisations are mediocre, what we should be thinking about when it comes to measuring performance, a story about a Unilever soap factory, the signs of a poor culture and what we should doing to not become one of ‘those’ managers or leaders.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – What happens when you give data back to people? – Interview with Jamie Smith of Customer Futures – and is number 498 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Jamie Smith, who is the Founder and CEO of Customer Futures Ltd, an advisory firm helping businesses seize the opportunity around disruptive and customer-empowering digital propositions, and author of the weekly Customer Futures Newsletter. Jamie joins me today to talk about CustomerTech tools, EmpowermentTech, the emerging Customer Stack, what this all means, the implications of all this for personalisation and privacy and what customer engagement in the near future could look like.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – A look inside a punk-inspired contact center – Interview with David Powers – and is number 497 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with David Powers, who is an author, podcast host, Chief Experience Officer at Rooter Hero Plumbing & Air and a true punk. David joins me today to talk about the need for taking a more punk approach to customer experience and the contact center, what that means in practical terms, some of the big changes he’s seen in the contact center space over the last 23 years as well as some of the biggest challenges coming down the pipe and, finally, what it means to create a tribe and/or a scene in your contact center.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – The CX value model and linking experience to business outcomes – Interview with Michael Hinshaw of McorpCX – and is number 496 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with Michael Hinshaw, the founder and president of customer experience consultancy McorpCX. Michael joins me today to talk about the CX value model and why we should be linking experience to business outcomes, some key indicators of a successful customer-centric transformation, why your company might need an experience operating system (the XOS), what it is and what are the benefits.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – Leadership lessons from the winner of the 2023 CX Leader of the Year – Interview with Roxie Strohmenger of UKG – and is number 495 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Today’s interview is with the winner of the MyCustomer 2023 CX Leader of the Year competition: Roxie Strohmenger, GSO - VP, CX Strategy at UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group).

This interview is slightly different this week as I conduct it with Clare Muscutt, Founder and CEO of Women in CX but follows the same format to the one last year where we interviewed Maneesha Bhusal of JD .ID, the winner of the 2022 CX Leader of the Year.

In the interview, we discuss Roxie’s journey to where she is now, why she applied for the CX Leader of the Year competition, how she felt when she won and the biggest lessons that she has learned along the way.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – The frontline is where you connect EX and CX together in a very natural way – Interview with Joe Tyrrell of Medallia – and is number 494 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.