The CX Equation

What if your global CX strategy could scale effortlessly, without ever overruling local teams? In this episode of The CX Equation, hosts Chantelle Casey and Mark Clydesdale welcome Rob Grierson, Head of Group CRM, Customer Analytics & Innovation at Specsavers, to explore how global teams can unify customer experience across 10+ markets without diluting local expertise. Rob shares practical frameworks for building a global CRM community, strengthening personal relationships across regions, and creating shared testing standards that inspire trust. He also breaks down Specsavers’ “steal with pride” culture, where teams confidently adopt proven tactics from other markets to accelerate impact. This conversation reveals how global scale, when combined with local autonomy, becomes a powerful CX advantage.


What You’ll Learn:

• How to map the universal customer journey across diverse markets 
• Why personal relationships matter more than processes in global CX alignment
• The "Steal with Pride" Framework for scaling regional wins
• How to build a testing framework that gives regions confidence to share results
• Why global leaders must continuously realign with shifting local priorities
• How to foster organic community participation without top-down mandates
  
  

Rob Grierson is Head of Group CRM, Customer Analytics & Innovation, Customer Analytics, and Innovation at Specsavers, where he has spent more than two decades shaping customer engagement strategies across one of the world's most recognisable retail healthcare brands. With a background spanning location analytics, CRM, and digital transformation, Rob has built globally unified frameworks that enable local market autonomy and innovation. His work fostering cross-regional collaboration and establishing best practices in testing and email deliverability has positioned Specsavers' CRM function as a gold standard within the organisation


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 a Senior Solutions Consultant 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.



This episode is brought to you by Tap CXM.


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

In today’s data-driven world, creativity is the true competitive differentiator and the cornerstone of next-level customer experiences. In this episode of The CX Equation, hosts Chantelle Casey and Mark Clydesdale sit down with Matt Broekhuizen, Head of Customer Engagement at VCCP,  to explore how iconic brands like LEGO and Sainsbury’s blend tech, data, and creativity to create emotionally resonant customer experiences. Matt shares frameworks for aligning cross-functional teams, building human-centered CRM programmes, and utilising AI to enhance creative excellence, proving that the most successful CX strategies prioritise brand storytelling over technology.
What You’ll Learn:

• How to build the "tech-data-creativity triangle" that no one has fully cracked yet
• Why your email and CRM programmes are damaging your brand reputation right now 
• The programme vs. campaign mindset shift that doubled customer engagement
• How to organise cross-functional teams ("squads") for authentic customer-centricity 
• Why AI enhances rather than threatens creative customer engagement 
• The actual difference between loyalty programmes and CRM, and why most organisations confuse them
  
  

Matt Broekhuizen joined VCCP in 2022 after an impressive 14-year run leading Table19, the independent agency he founded in 2008 to specialise in Loyalty and CRM programmes. With experience spanning global brands such as BlackRock, Investec, Sainsbury’s, Nectar, Blackberry, and Sky, Matt brings a wealth of strategic and creative expertise. At VCCP, he heads the Loyalty & CRM team, overseeing clients including Canon, Sage, Vitality, Fortnum & Mason, LEGO, TfL, and Mark Anthony Group.


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 a Senior Solutions Consultant 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:

• Matt Broekhuizen on LinkedIn
• VCCP UK 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.

Today, personalisation has become a buzzword that’s thrown around frequently in marketing circles. But what does meaningful personalisation really look like, and how can businesses deliver it at scale? In this inaugural episode of The CX Equation, hosts Chantelle Casey and Mark Clydesdale dive deep into the evolution of personalisation and provide actionable insights for businesses looking to move beyond surface-level customisation.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why personalisation goes beyond adding first names to emails and how to focus on true relevance
• How to overcome common personalisation barriers
  Why customer expectations are being set by best-in-class experiences across all industries
• The essential foundation of customer understanding before implementing personalisation tech
  How to balance personalisation with privacy to build trust rather than break it
• Why modern MarTech platforms offer more personalisation capabilities than most businesses utilise
  
  

Mark 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 is a Senior Solutions Consultant 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:

• 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.

Customer experience is complex, but it doesn’t have to be confusing.

The CX Equation dives into the real stories and real results shaping CX transformation in enterprise organisations. Each week, hosts Chantelle and Mark cut through surface-level talk and bring you honest conversations with clients, consultants, and technology leaders. Together, they explore what works, what doesn’t, and what it really takes to deliver loyalty, retention, and growth at scale.

Expect:

• Candid lessons from enterprise leaders driving CX change
• A straight-up look at tech investments — worth it or wasted?
• Behind-the-scenes stories of embedded partnerships in action
• Honest confessions about what failed (and why)
• Practical takeaways you can use immediately

No fluff. No hype. Just grounded insights you can trust.

🎧 The CX Equation is your seat at the table for high-stakes decisions, breakthrough strategies, and the human dynamics that define customer experience in the enterprise world.


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.