Today’s podcast is a three-parter and features interviews with Zig Serafin, Brad Anderson and Isabelle Zdatny that I conducted at Qualtrics’ recent X4 2025: The Experience Management Summit, which took place in Salt Lake City on March 18th-20th. Zig Serafin is the Chief Executive Officer of Qualtrics, Brad Anderson is the President of Products, UX and Engineering at Qualtrics, and Isabelle Zdatny is the Head of Thought Leadership at Qualtrics XM Institute. We talk about all of the latest developments at Qualtrics, including some of the big product announcements, many of the big challenges currently facing brands and a new piece of research that Qualtrics recently produced in collaboration with McKinsey on The AI-Powered Customer Experience Opportunity.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – Testing and experimentation is everyone’s problem – Interview with Shafqat Islam of Optimizely – and is number 535 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, who recently held their X4 2025: The Experience Management Summit in Salt Lake City on March 18th-20th. I was there, and it was a great event that explored how leading organizations are leveraging Experience Management (XM) to enhance customer and employee satisfaction, reduce operating costs, and achieve remarkable breakthroughs. We heard from industry leaders and companies, including Autodesk, Ford, USAA and Hilton. Find out more and catch up on the latest news coming out of the event at the Qualtrics website.

Today’s podcast is with Shafqat Islam, President at Optimizely, who joins me to talk about a new research report they have just published called Tested to Perfection, experimentation, personalization, privacy and all things in between, including the key things that marketers should be doing more of to better engage their customers.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – There are five types of loyalty but only two are growing – Interview with Sara Richter of SAP Emarsys - and is number 534 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 X4 2025: The Experience Management Summit, which is taking place in Salt Lake City on March 18th-20th. It’s set to be an unforgettable event designed to empower you and your organization in leveraging Experience Management (XM) to enhance customer and employee satisfaction, reduce operating costs, and achieve remarkable breakthroughs. There, you will hear about some of the best customer experience programmes from industry leaders and companies, including Autodesk, Ford, USAA and Hilton. Find out more and register now at the Qualtrics website.

Today’s podcast is with Sara Richter, CMO at SAP Emarsys, a leading omnichannel customer engagement platform provider. Sara joins me today to talk about customer loyalty, the findings emerging from the 2024 edition of their Customer Loyalty Index (CLI) report, the five different types of loyalty that marketers and CX professionals should be thinking about, and what brands should be doing to engender (true) loyalty with their customers.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – Harnessing the contact center’s potential as a real-time data gold mine – Interview with Suvi Lindfors of Netigate – and is number 533 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 X4 2025: The Experience Management Summit, which is taking place in Salt Lake City on March 18th-20th. It’s set to be an unforgettable event designed to empower you and your organization in leveraging Experience Management (XM) to enhance customer and employee satisfaction, reduce operating costs, and achieve remarkable breakthroughs. There, you will hear about some of the best customer experience programmes from industry leaders and companies, including Autodesk, Ford, USAA and Hilton. Find out more and register now at the Qualtrics website.

Today’s podcast is with Suvi Lindfors, Strategic Business Development, Netigate. Suvi joins me today to talk about why she thinks the contact center is becoming one of the most valuable sources of insight in any organisation, how many brands are actually leveraging these insights, what needs to happen to facilitate this journey in terms of strategy, people, process and technology, what sort of impact will this have on customer centricity and how we are likely to see the contact center emerge as a data and analytics service provider within organisations.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – Life Lessons I Learned From Being A Line Cook – Interview with Ari Weinzweig – and is number 532 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 X4 2025: The Experience Management Summit, which is taking place in Salt Lake City on March 18th-20th. It’s set to be an unforgettable event designed to empower you and your organization in leveraging Experience Management (XM) to enhance customer and employee satisfaction, reduce operating costs, and achieve remarkable breakthroughs. There, you will hear about some of the best customer experience programmes from industry leaders and companies, including Autodesk, Ford, USAA and Hilton. Find out more and register now at the Qualtrics website.

Today’s podcast is with Ari Weinzweig, the CEO and co-founding partner of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, a much-admired gourmet food business group headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Ari is a friend, a veteran of the podcast and was also one of the contributors to Punk XL. Ari joins me today to talk about his latest missive - a chapbook entitled Life Lessons I Learned From Being A Line Cook; what a chapbook is, the insights behind some of the lessons and what they mean from an entrepreneur and leader who is passionate about customer service and experience.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – The natural home of the contact center is under the CMO – Interview with Alex Levin of Regal.io – and is number 531 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 podcast is with Alex Levin, the Co-Founder and CEO of Regal.io, that provides high-touch contact center software (CCaaS) that enhances sales, support, and customer retention with the help of AI agents and automated personalization. Alex joins me today to talk about the rise of voice AI agents and how they are likely to transform contact centers helping to automate the majority of contact center interactions by 2035, how AI is going to bring back the ability to treat customers like human beings, why the natural home of the contact center is under the CMO and and the intriguing prospect of agents in the contact center becoming very sought after and very highly paid.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – The majority of agents don’t find AI useful in their daily work – Interview with Martin Teasdale and Ed Creasey – and is number 530 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 podcast is with Martin Teasdale, host of Get out of Wrap, a contact centre focused podcast, and Ed Creasey, Global VP of Solutions Engineering at Calabrio, a workforce performance suite provider. Martin recently collaborated with Ed and the team at Calabrio on a new piece of research called Voice of the Agent. Martin and Ed join me today on the podcast to talk about some of the main findings emerging from the research, the enhanced reputation of the contact centre industry and some key messages for team leaders and contact centre leaders and directors.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – We got everyone involved in support and made our customer support metrics public – Interview with Kenji Hayward of Front – and is number 529 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 podcast is with Kenji Hayward, the Senior Director of Customer Support at Front, the all-in-one, AI-powered customer service platform built for collaboration. Kenji joins me today to talk about why email isn’t dead and why Front takes an email-first approach, getting everyone involved in the support queue, including the CEO, and why they made their customer support metrics public. You can check them out here.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – Data ontology and rethinking customer support metrics – Interview with Marcel Barrera of serviceMob Inc – and is number 528 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 podcast is with Marcel Barrera, Chief Strategy Officer at serviceMob Inc, a customer service enterprise technology company specializing in data ontology driven analytics. Marcel joins me today to talk about why the dominant metrics that are currently being used in customer support are broken, “The ‘Hamster Wheel’ Dilemma,” why AI and human agents are bound to fail without a cohesive, actionable data model and, finally, why churn is customer service’s darkest secret.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – The impact of influencer marketing on customer experience – Interview with Daphne Robertson of #paid – and is number 527 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 podcast is with Daphne Robertson, the VP of Customer Experience and Operations at #paid, a creator marketplace where brands and creators connect, collaborate, and measure their creator marketing campaigns. Daphne joins me today to talk about influencer marketing, it’s growth and influence on customer experience and engagement, how to get it right and the impact of generative AI tools on this space.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – An eight-step discovery process to help master the customer experience – Interview with Edwin Margulies of Nextiva – and is number 526 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.