Unsung Heroes

Mike Wittenstein is a customer experience designer and strategist, and the founder of StoryMiners. As eVisionary at IBM, he started the company’s first experience and service design practice, and he helped establish the international Customer Experience Professionals Association. He has since worked with more than 400 organisations in over 25 countries, including Apple, Delta Air Lines, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s and Best Buy. His work helps CEOs prototype and build the next version of their customer experience, so that the promises a brand makes are ones the business is actually designed to keep.

In this episode of Unsung Heroes, Guy Van Neck and Mike explore what separates brands that deliver great experiences consistently from those whose efforts fade away. They discuss why customer experience used only to serve the bottom line ends up flat, why strategies so often break down when they reach hundreds of locations, and how physical prototyping, from cardboard-box stations to Chick-fil-A’s “human prototyping” with actors, gets everyone aligned. The conversation also covers the store manager as a mini CEO and system designer, why you should ask employees what the company can do for them, what NPS was originally meant to do, and how AI and personalisation could end the idea of the “perfect customer”.

Episode breakdown

Find the guest & host
 🎙️ Guest: Mike Wittenstein

• StoryMiners
• LinkedIn

🎧 Host: Guy Van Neck

• LinkedIn
• MobieTrain
• Khova

Mike Wittenstein is a customer experience designer and strategist, and the founder of StoryMiners. He started IBM’s first experience and service design practice and has since worked with more than 400 organisations, including Apple, Delta Air Lines, Chick-fil-A and McDonald’s.

In this preview of Unsung Heroes, Mike joins Guy Van Neck to explore why so many brands make promises their businesses aren’t designed to keep. He also explains why, in an AI world, customer experience has become the real front end of any brand.

🎧 Want to hear the full conversation?

 Keep an eye out for the full episode, Stop Designing for the Perfect Customer, coming soon!

 Follow Unsung Heroes so you don’t miss it when it goes live.

JD Dillon is a leading voice in frontline enablement and organisational performance, with more than 25 years of experience across operations, talent development, technology and strategy. His career has included senior roles with organisations including Disney, AMC and he is the author of The Frontline Enablement Playbook and The Modern Learning Ecosystem. His work focuses on helping organisations build the culture, practices and systems that turn strategy into stronger, more consistent frontline performance.

In this episode of Unsung Heroes, Guy Van Neck and JD explore the gap between how work is designed at the corporate level and how it actually plays out on the frontline. They dig into why even well intentioned strategies can break down in unpredictable operational environments, why managers are the crucial link between employee experience, business performance and why traditional training often fails to support people in the moments they need it most. The conversation also looks at how technology and AI can simplify access to information, how businesses can listen more effectively to frontline teams and why better performance starts with designing systems around the reality of the shift rather than expecting employees to compensate for them.

Find the guest & host

🎙️ Guest: JD Dillon

• Website
• LinkedIn
• The Frontline Enablement Playbook

🎧 Host: Guy Van Neck

• LinkedIn
• MobieTrain
• Khova

Frontline employees don’t fail — systems do.

In this episode of Unsung Heroes, Guy Van Neck sits down with frontline enablement expert JD Dillon to explore why the gap between corporate strategy and the reality of a shift is costing businesses performance, engagement and consistency.

With 25+ years of experience across Disney, AMC and beyond, JD shares practical insight on what it takes to help frontline teams succeed: better managers, smarter systems, support in the moment of need and genuine feedback loops from the floor to HQ.

They discuss why traditional training often falls short, how AI and mobile tools can make knowledge easier to access, and the one practical change every operator can make tomorrow.

The full episode launches Monday 28 September. 

Featuring JD Dillon, author of The Frontline Enablement Playbook and The Modern Learning Ecosystem.

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