The CX Equation

Frontline employees are not simply a resource for delivering customer experiences; they are the people who shape those experiences every day. When organisations connect employee engagement, operational discipline, and customer outcomes, they can unlock significant gains in retention, loyalty, revenue, and efficiency.

In this episode of The CX Equation, host Chantelle Casey speaks with Brett Kiley, founder and CEO of Experience Improvement Partners, and together they explore why employee experience and customer experience should be treated as two sides of the same equation. Brett shares how shifting metrics from average handle time to first-call resolution reduced executive complaints by 94%, why the true cost of employee turnover can be far higher than recruitment expenses suggest, and why pay increases alone rarely solve retention challenges. 

The conversation also explores how HR and Operations can break down silos, build a consistent employee “DNA,” use AI to enhance rather than replace people, and create continuous feedback loops. 

Key takeaway: Better customer experiences begin with creating the conditions for frontline employees to thrive.


What You’ll Learn:

• Why "the customer is number one" is backwards, and what to prioritise instead
• The real cost of turnover is 10x what you think it is
• Why pay raises don't stop people from leaving, and what actually does
• How to merge siloed teams, Operations and HR, into one integrated strategy
• The DNA framework for consistency from hiring through customer interactions
• How to use operational discipline to enable rather than constrain
• Why your C-suite will listen when you speak their language
• The power of a closed feedback loop over annual surveys

Brett Kiley is a customer experience executive and founder of Experience Improvement Partners, helping organisations turn employee experience into measurable business results. With more than two decades of operational leadership, Brett has driven NPS from 24 to 81, reduced turnover from 61% to 9%, and protected billions in customer revenue. His work focuses on connecting employee engagement, operational discipline, and customer outcomes. Brett helps leaders identify the real drivers of retention, build stronger frontline teams, and create cultures where employees and customers thrive.


Chantelle Casey is the Principal Solutions Architect at Tap CXM and a marketing operations and MarTech leader who builds the plumbing that makes personalisation work at scale. She specialises in unified customer views, decisioning, and “next-best-everything” logic. Currently, her focus is on supporting clients in transforming their business to best, optimising their customer experience, improving their agility, and developing better ways of working that are insight-driven and customer-focused.


Episode Resources:

• Brett Kiley on LinkedIn
• EIP Website
• Chantelle Casey on LinkedIn
• Mark Clydesdale on LinkedIn
• Tap CXM Website

This episode is brought to you by Tap CXM.


The CX Equation is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so.

In this episode of The CX Equation, hosts Chantelle Casey and Mark Clydesdale speak with Hazem EL Taha, a Global MarTech Leader, to explore where the ethical boundaries of modern marketing should sit as personalisation, AI, and data-driven engagement become increasingly sophisticated. Hazem explains why the ability to personalise or automate an experience does not automatically make it the right thing to do.


The conversation explores why customer trust should be treated as a core business metric, how marketers can use the minimum data necessary to create genuine value, and why consent does not always mean customers truly understand what they are agreeing to. Hazem also shares practical approaches to governance, human oversight, and the application of the simple “family test” to ethical marketing decisions, while examining how AI can amplify both opportunity and risk.


Key takeaway: Sustainable marketing performance comes from earning customer trust, using data responsibly, and putting strong ethical guardrails around the technology that increasingly shapes customer experiences.


What You’ll Learn:

• Why customer trust should be your primary metric
• The "family test" principle for ethical decision-making
• How to collect minimum data for maximum impact 
• Why consent isn't the same as understanding 
• The governance gap that undermines ethics at scale 
• How AI amplifies both opportunity and risk

Hazem EL Taha is a strategic MarTech leader with 18+ years of experience driving digital transformation, data strategy, and personalisation across global organisations. As a Global MarTech Leader, he leads global MarTech strategy across 20+ markets, using data, AI, and technology to enhance customer experiences and deliver measurable commercial value. His expertise spans first-party data, CDPs, Gen AI, personalisation, and omnichannel engagement. A recognised industry speaker and thought leader, Hazem regularly shares insights on personalisation, data ethics, customer trust, and the future of marketing technology.


Mark Clydesdale is the Head of Strategic Consulting at Tap CXM and a customer-obsessed marketing strategist who turns messy data and competing P&Ls into clear, scalable personalisation. He’s best known for championing relevance and bringing a strategic perspective to its importance in personalisation. Having worked across sectors from telco and banking to retail and media, Mark bridges the gap between customer insight, decisioning, and real-world execution.


Chantelle Casey is the Principal Solutions Architect at Tap CXM and a marketing operations and MarTech leader who builds the plumbing that makes personalisation work at scale. She specialises in unified customer views, decisioning, and “next-best-everything” logic. Currently, her focus is on supporting clients in transforming their business to best, optimising their customer experience, improving their agility, and developing better ways of working that are insight-driven and customer-focused.


Episode Resources:

• Hazem EL Taha on LinkedIn
• Chantelle Casey on LinkedIn
• Mark Clydesdale on LinkedIn
• Tap CXM Website

This episode is brought to you by Tap CXM.


The CX Equation is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so.

In this episode of The CX Equation, hosts Chantelle Casey and Mark Clydesdale explore why so many organisations rush to replace their MarTech platforms when the real problems often lie elsewhere. They explain how leading with technology instead of clearly defining the business problem results in unnecessary costs, lengthy implementations, and disappointing outcomes.

The discussion introduces a practical framework for evaluating existing technology, identifying process bottlenecks, assessing data quality, and uncovering knowledge gaps before considering a new platform. 
Chantelle and Mark also examine the impact of poor collaboration between marketing, IT, and data teams, and why technical debt often limits the value organisations get from existing investments. They also separate genuine AI opportunities from vendor hype, showing how businesses can make smarter technology decisions by focusing on strategy and optimisation rather than chasing every new trend.
Key takeaway: The best technology investments start with understanding the problem, not choosing the platform, ensuring every decision delivers measurable business value. 

What You’ll Learn:

• Why "leading with the platform, not the problem" is the biggest MarTech mistake
• How to conduct a root cause analysis before talking to any vendor
• The hidden cost of poor cross-team collaboration
• Why knowledge gaps and technical debt are your real enemies
• The practical framework for deciding: upgrade existing tech or invest in new
• How to cut through AI hype and identify genuine use cases
  
  

Mark Clydesdale is the Head of Strategic Consulting at Tap CXM and a customer-obsessed marketing strategist who turns messy data and competing P&Ls into clear, scalable personalisation. He’s best known for championing relevance and bringing a strategic perspective to its importance in personalisation. Having worked across sectors from telco and banking to retail and media, Mark bridges the gap between customer insight, decisioning, and real-world execution.


Chantelle Casey is the Principal Solutions Architect at Tap CXM and a marketing operations and MarTech leader who builds the plumbing that makes personalisation work at scale. She specialises in unified customer views, decisioning, and “next-best-everything” logic. Currently, her focus is on supporting clients in transforming their businesses to be the best, optimising their customer experience, improving their agility, and developing better ways of working that are insight-driven and customer-focused.


Episode Resources:

• Chantelle Casey on LinkedIn
• Mark Clydesdale on LinkedIn
• Tap CXM Website

This episode is brought to you by Tap CXM.


The CX Equation is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so.

In this episode of The CX Equation, hosts Chantelle Casey and Mark Clydesdale speak with Greg Kihlström, consultant, author, and host of The Agile Brand podcast, to explore why true agility is not about moving faster, but about moving together with purpose. Greg explains how organisations can avoid confusing constant change with real agility by building alignment, creating disciplined experimentation processes, and balancing team autonomy with shared direction.


The conversation explores why data silos, disconnected processes, and behaviour change are the biggest barriers to delivering seamless customer experiences, and how leaders can overcome them without rebuilding their entire organisations. Greg also shares insights on moving beyond AI experimentation toward practical adoption that creates measurable impact.


Key takeaway: Organisational agility comes from alignment, experimentation, and coordinated action, not speed alone, enabling teams to create better customer experiences at scale.


What You’ll Learn:

• How to distinguish between real agility and reactive pivoting 
• Why the scientific method matters more than you think 
• The alignment-autonomy balance that separates coherent organisations from chaotic ones 
• How to spot the real barriers to a seamless customer experience 
• Why behaviour change is harder to sustain than technology or platform implementation 
• The practical shift from experimenting with AI to standardising how it's actually used

Greg Kihlström is a consultant, advisor, author, and host of the award-winning The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® podcast, helping organisations create greater customer value through the intelligent use of technology, data, and process improvement. With deep expertise across marketing technology, customer experience, AI adoption, and change management, Greg has advised Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies on personalisation, customer data transformation, journey orchestration, and operational agility. He is the author of more than 20 books on martech and CX, a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, an Agile Certified Coach, and a recognised thought leader who has been featured in leading publications and lectured at universities including Georgetown and Virginia Tech.


Mark Clydesdale is the Head of Strategic Consulting at Tap CXM and a customer-obsessed marketing strategist who turns messy data and competing P&Ls into clear, scalable personalisation. He’s best known for championing relevance and bringing a strategic perspective on the importance of relevance in personalisation. Having worked across sectors from telco and banking to retail and media, Mark bridges the gap between customer insight, decisioning, and real-world execution.


Chantelle Casey is the Principal Solutions Architect at Tap CXM and a marketing operations and MarTech leader who builds the plumbing that makes personalisation work at scale. She specialises in unified customer views, decisioning, and “next-best-everything” logic. Currently, her focus is on supporting clients in transforming their business to best, optimising their customer experience, improving their agility, and developing better ways of working that are insight-driven and customer-focused.


Episode Resources:

• Greg Kihlström on LinkedIn
• Agile Brand Website
• Chantelle Casey on LinkedIn
• Mark Clydesdale on LinkedIn
• Tap CXM Website

This episode is brought to you by Tap CXM.


The CX Equation is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so.

In this episode of The CX Equation, hosts Chantelle Casey and Mark Clydesdale speak with Sam Stern, Senior Manager of Service Design at LinkedIn, to challenge the idea that all friction is bad. Sam explains how intentional friction, when designed thoughtfully, can create emotional resonance, improve memory, and strengthen customer loyalty. From the IKEA Effect to the Enterprise Pause, he shares practical frameworks for distinguishing good friction from bad and applying it across customer and employee journeys. The conversation explores why effortless experiences often feel forgettable, how contrast drives recall, and where slowing down, through human interaction or key decision moments, can turn routine transactions into meaningful, memorable experiences. 
Key takeaway: Designing intentional friction at the right moments transforms routine interactions into memorable experiences that build trust and long-term customer loyalty. 
What You’ll Learn:

• How to distinguish good friction from bad friction 
• Why the "effortless experience" mantra can backfire 
• The peak-end rule and how to use contrast to drive memory 
• How to redesign employee experiences to improve customer outcomes 
• When to keep human interaction despite efficiency gains
• Practical friction points where design matters most
  
  

Sam Stern is a service design leader focused on improving customer and employee experiences through intentional design. As Senior Manager of Service Design at LinkedIn, he leads initiatives that enhance end-to-end journeys for members, customers, and colleagues, with an emphasis on creating meaningful and memorable interactions. His work explores how thoughtful friction can strengthen trust and engagement. Sam is also the host of the CX Patterns Podcast & Newsletter, where he shares insights on customer experience strategy, and a published instructor on LinkedIn Learning. 


Mark Clydesdale is the Head of Strategic Consulting at Tap CXM and a customer-obsessed marketing strategist who turns messy data and competing P&Ls into clear, scalable personalisation. He’s best known for championing relevance and bringing a strategic perspective on the importance of relevance in personalisation. Having worked across sectors from telco and banking to retail and media, Mark bridges the gap between customer insight, decisioning, and real-world execution.


Chantelle Casey is the Principal Solutions Architect at Tap CXM and a marketing operations and MarTech leader who builds the plumbing that makes personalisation work at scale. She specialises in unified customer views, decisioning, and “next-best-everything” logic. Currently, her focus is on supporting clients in transforming their business to best, optimising their customer experience, improving their agility, and developing better ways of working that are insight-driven and customer-focused.


Episode Resources:

• Sam Stern on LinkedIn
• LinkedIn Website
• Chantelle Casey on LinkedIn
• Mark Clydesdale on LinkedIn
• Tap CXM Website

This episode is brought to you by Tap CXM.


The CX Equation is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so.

In this episode of The CX Equation, hosts Chantelle Casey and Mark Clydesdale sit down with Emmanuelle Savarit, a senior research and strategy leader, to explore how embedding user research into everyday decisions drives measurable business impact. Emmanuelle shares how to position research as a core business function, align insights with stakeholder priorities, and scale research across organisations. She also explains how AI is enhancing, rather than replacing, researchers by freeing them to focus on strategic thinking and human judgment. Tune in to learn how to turn insights into action and build a culture where research truly moves the needle.


Key takeaway: Embedding user research into daily decision-making turns insights into measurable business impact.


What You’ll Learn:

• How to position research as a business function, not an afterthought
• Why triangulating qualitative insights with quantitative data creates a powerful story
• The "research maturity model" framework for scaling insights across organisations
• How AI is making researchers 40% more effective without compromising quality
• Why human oversight of AI models is non-negotiable in research
• How to embed research into everyday decision-making
  
  

Emmanuelle Savarit is a senior research and strategy leader with over 20 years of experience advising organisations on integrating AI, digital products, and UX research to drive responsible innovation and measurable business impact. She has built and led global insight functions across finance, technology, government, and consumer sectors, translating user understanding and data into product strategy and executive decisions. Her work focuses on AI governance, ethical adoption, and human oversight. Emmanuelle is the author of Practical User Research and The UX Research Powerhouse trilogy, and host of the UX Research Club podcast, where she explores research leadership and strategy.


Mark Clydesdale is the Head of Strategic Consulting at Tap CXM and a customer-obsessed marketing strategist who turns messy data and competing P&Ls into clear, scalable personalisation. He’s best known for championing relevance and bringing a strategic perspective on the importance of relevance in personalisation. Having worked across sectors from telco and banking to retail and media, Mark bridges the gap between customer insight, decisioning, and real-world execution.


Chantelle Casey is the Principal Solutions Architect at Tap CXM and a marketing operations and MarTech leader who builds the plumbing that makes personalisation work at scale. She specialises in unified customer views, decisioning, and “next-best-everything” logic. Currently, her focus is on supporting clients in transforming their business to best, optimising their customer experience, improving their agility, and developing better ways of working that are insight-driven and customer-focused.


Episode Resources:

• Emmanuelle Savarit on LinkedIn
• UX Research Club Podcast
• UX Research Powerhouse on Amazon
• Practical User Research on Amazon
• Chantelle Casey on LinkedIn
• Mark Clydesdale on LinkedIn
• Tap CXM Website

This episode is brought to you by Tap CXM.


The CX Equation is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so.

In this episode of The CX Equation, hosts Chantelle Casey and Mark Clydesdale sit down with Nicole Storey, Co-Founder and Head of Experimentation at Hookflash, to reveal how experimentation can transform website performance and customer experience. Nicole breaks down why running tests without a clear hypothesis wastes time, how to align SEO insights with on-site experience, and why “losing” tests can be the most valuable lessons. She shares practical frameworks for data-driven decision-making, creating tailored landing pages, and building a culture that drives sustainable growth. Tune in to learn how experimentation can turn insights into real business results.


Key takeaway: Experimentation with a clear hypothesis turns website data into actionable insights that drive real business growth.


What You’ll Learn:

• Why your website is your most underoptimised channel
• How to avoid the mismatch between search intent and on-site experience.
• The power of data-driven hypothesis building before you test.
• Why losing tests are often more valuable than winning ones.
• How to talk to stakeholders who fear the maths.
• The practical first step toward personalisation.
• How to build a culture where people enjoy the work they do.
  
  

Nicole Storey is Co-founder and Head of Experimentation at Hookflash, a recognised leader in digital optimisation and experimentation strategy. With a background in computer science and a decade of experience building analytics and experimentation programmes, Nicole has helped numerous brands understand customer behaviour and unlock website performance gains. Previously leading analytics and experimentation teams at Merkle, she founded Hookflash to address a critical gap in the market: the absence of holistic website optimisation that ties together analytics, SEO, and experimentation. Her work has positioned Hookflash as a trusted partner for organisations seeking to transform data-driven insights into measurable growth and customer-centric experiences.


Mark Clydesdale is the Head of Strategic Consulting at Tap CXM and a customer-obsessed marketing strategist who turns messy data and competing P&Ls into clear, scalable personalisation. He’s best known for championing relevance and bringing a strategic perspective on the importance of relevance in personalisation. Having worked across sectors from telco and banking to retail and media, Mark bridges the gap between customer insight, decisioning, and real-world execution.


Chantelle Casey is the Principal Solutions Architect at Tap CXM and a marketing operations and MarTech leader who builds the plumbing that makes personalisation work at scale. She specialises in unified customer views, decisioning, and “next-best-everything” logic. Currently, her focus is on supporting clients in transforming their business to best, optimising their customer experience, improving their agility, and developing better ways of working that are insight-driven and customer-focused.


Episode Resources:

• Nicole Storey on LinkedIn
• Hookflash Website
• Chantelle Casey on LinkedIn
• Mark Clydesdale on LinkedIn
• Tap CXM Website

This episode is brought to you by Tap CXM.


The CX Equation is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so.

In this episode of The CX Equation, hosts Chantelle Casey and Mark Clydesdale are joined by Zeke Wu and Aswin Peter to discuss what it really takes to use AI for improving customer experience. Drawing on lessons from the automotive and energy domains, they share that a problem-first thinking approach beats AI hype every time. The conversation explores how trust and transparency shape AI adoption, why augmenting teams matters more than replacing them, and how small, practical use cases can scale globally, even in regulated environments. 

The key takeaway: competitive advantage comes from better decisions, not just more digital tools.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why "problem-first" thinking beats AI-first hype
• How to implement AI without eroding customer trust
• The three practical ways AI is reshaping customer service today
• How to balance global AI frameworks with regional customization
• Why data integration doesn't need to be perfect before you start
• How AI is reshaping customer discovery and brand visibility
  
  

Zeke Wu is a Global CRM Program Manager at Nissan Motor Corporation, specialising in AI-powered sales and customer strategy across the automotive sector. With extensive experience spanning automotive, aviation, and consulting, Zeke leads data-driven CRM initiatives that blend predictive modeling with customer insights to enhance acquisition and lifetime value.


Aswin Peter is a Senior Product Lead – Customer Experience and Product Strategy, Energy and Utilities Industry with over a decade of global experience building customer-centric, game-changing products. Analytical and data-driven, he focuses on key metrics to solve core customer problems and deliver strategic impact. An MBA graduate of the McCombs School of Business, UT Austin, Aswin has led diverse teams across energy, utilities, payments, and customer experience. He was accepted into the Perplexity AI Business Fellowship in 2025, a program run by Perplexity AI aimed at experienced professionals looking to deepen their strategic understanding and application of AI. 


Mark Clydesdale is the Head of Strategic Consulting at Tap CXM and a customer-obsessed marketing strategist who turns messy data and competing P&Ls into clear, scalable personalisation. He’s best known for championing relevance and bringing a strategic perspective on the importance of relevance in personalisation. Having worked across sectors from telco and banking to retail and media, Mark bridges the gap between customer insight, decisioning, and real-world execution.


Chantelle Casey is the Principal Solutions Architect at Tap CXM and a marketing operations and MarTech leader who builds the plumbing that makes personalisation work at scale. She specialises in unified customer views, decisioning, and “next-best-everything” logic. Currently, her focus is on supporting clients in transforming their business to best, optimising their customer experience, improving their agility, and developing better ways of working that are insight-driven and customer-focused.


Episode Resources:

• Zeke Wu on LinkedIn
• Nissan Motor Corporation Website
• Aswin Peter on LinkedIn
• Perplexity on LinkedIn
• Chantelle Casey on LinkedIn
• Mark Clydesdale on LinkedIn
• Tap CXM Website

This episode is brought to you by Tap CXM.


The CX Equation is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so.

Markets are crowded, products feel interchangeable, and customer loyalty is more fragile than ever. In this episode of The CX Equation, hosts Chantelle Casey and Mark Clydesdale are joined by Andy Sage to explore why experience is the true competitive advantage across industries, and how behavioural psychology can shape CX design. From adoption curves to organisational design, they unpack how to turn complex, commoditised offerings into trusted propositions that customers genuinely value, adopt, and remain loyal to. 

What You’ll Learn:

• How to identify what customers actually want beneath surface needs
• Why simplicity in proposition design drives adoption more than feature richness
• The behavioural psychology framework for segmenting customers
• How to structure organisations around customer experience, not product silos
• The trust equation: why one bad experience now costs you customers, forever
• How to design for future behaviours that customers haven't adopted yet

Andy Sage is the Propositions and Partnerships Lead at E.ON. He brings 25 years of experience helping start-ups, scale-ups, and global enterprises turn strategy into commercial results. A specialist in market proposition innovation, business transformation, and operational execution across B2B and B2C models, he partners with senior leaders to build customer-centric, commercially minded cultures. His work spans strategy, product development, organisational design, and large-scale change. Known for aligning stakeholders and translating insight into action, Andy is a respected speaker on leadership, innovation, and transformation.


Episode Resources:

• Andy Sage on LinkedIn
• E.ON Website 
• Chantelle Casey on LinkedIn
• Mark Clydesdale on LinkedIn
• Tap CXM Website
  
  

This episode is brought to you by Tap CXM.


The CX Equation is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so.

Marketing teams are heading into 2026 under pressure to prove value, simplify their MarTech stacks, and deliver more with fewer resources, all while AI noise gets louder every week. In this episode of The CX Equation, hosts Chantelle Casey and Mark Clydesdale are joined by James Gent and Neil Hughes of Tap CXM to unpack what really changed in 2025, what composable actually means in practice, and why the next wave isn’t more AI.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to spot the difference between real AI capability and vendor hype
• Why consolidating and simplifying your MarTech stack is now a business necessity
• How to avoid the AI implementation trap
• Why humans plus AI outperform AI-only solutions by every measure
• The overlooked challenge that derails most AI projects
• How decisioning architecture is becoming the real competitive advantage
  
  

Neil Hughes is the Marketing Solutions Director at Tap CXM, specialising in technology consolidation, stack optimisation, and data architecture for enterprise clients. With vast experience helping leading brands navigate the complexities of composable marketing technology stacks, Neil brings a critical, curiosity-driven approach to identifying which technologies genuinely deliver ROI versus which are riding the AI hype wave.
James Gent is a Director and Business Consultant at Tap CXM with a background in designing and delivering marketing technology solutions for global brands. With deep expertise in marketing automation, decisioning frameworks, and AI implementation, James has led numerous technology consolidation and standardisation initiatives across enterprises.



Episode Resources:

• James Gent on LinkedIn
• Neil Hughes on LinkedIn
• Chantelle Casey on LinkedIn
• Mark Clydesdale on LinkedIn
• Tap CXM Website

This episode is brought to you by Tap CXM.


The CX Equation is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so.