Best Adrian Swinscoe Customer Experience Strategy Expert Podcasts (2025)

1
Employee understanding and cracking the code of a better employee experience - Interview with Annette Franz 38:53

Play Pause

21h ago38:53

38:53

Today’s interview is with Annette Franz, an author, speaker and founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc. She is also an old friend of the podcast and appeared back in 2019. She joins me today to talk about her new book: Employee Understanding: A Three-Pillar Framework for Designing a Great Experience and Driving Business Success, the difference between e…

1
Without context, an insight is worth nothing - Interview with Jochem van der Veer of TheyDo 50:48

13d ago50:48

50:48

Today’s interview is with Jochem van der Veer, the Co-Founder and CEO of TheyDo, a leading platform for journey management that helps organisations build seamless customer experiences by aligning teams around the customer journey. We discuss customer journeys, journey mapping, and data, highlighting how businesses risk exacerbating data overwhelm i…

1
Voice still reigns in customer service - Interview with Nikola Mrkšić of PolyAI 55:06

23d ago55:06

55:06

Today’s interview is with Nikola Mrkšić, Co-founder & CEO of PolyAI, a leading supplier of Conversational AI for automated customer service. We talk about some recent research of theirs that finds that the phone still reigns in customer service, making the contact center into a ‘command center,’ why voice channels aren’t relics of the past but are,…

1
The future of CX and agentic CX - Interview with Sid Banerjee of Medallia 40:54

30d ago40:54

40:54

Today’s interview is with Sid Banerjee, Chief Strategy Officer at Medallia, a leading provider of customer and employee experience management solutions. I first talked to Sid 11 years ago on this podcast when he was Founder & CEO at Clarabridge. This time around, we talk about what has happened in those intervening years, what brought him out of ‘r…

1
Customer-centric innovation and Amazon's PRFAQ - Interview with Marcelo Calbucci 36:40

1M ago36:40

36:40

Today’s interview is with Marcelo Calbucci, an entrepreneur, innovator, technologist, and author. Marcelo joins me today to talk about his new book: The PRFAQ Framework: Adapting Amazon’s Innovation Framework to Work for You, why Amazon uses it, the five principles of the PRFAQ, where and how it can be applied and what to expect when you are creati…

1
Lush’s Journey: Balancing Innovation, Empathy, and Customer Care - Interview with Naomi Rankin of Lush 27:18

2M ago27:18

27:18

Today’s interview is with Naomi Rankin, the Manager of Global Customer Care at Lush, the British cosmetics retailer. I spoke to Naomi when I attended Zendesk’s recent Relate event, which took place in Las Vegas on March 25th-27th. We talk about her highlights from the event, what customer care means to Lush, their approach to AI and her journey wit…

1
Omnichannel was a myth - Interview with Gaurav Passi of Zingly 39:55

2M ago39:55

39:55

Today’s interview is with Gaurav Passi, Founder & CEO of Zingly. He joins me today to talk about some research that they have recently conducted about FORO (the Fear of Reaching Out), the Great CX Paradox, why Omnichannel was a myth and how ‘Rooms’ could be the answer. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Why businesses need to inve…

1
Why businesses need to invest in both brand and customer experience - Interview with Martin Gill of Forrester 39:27

2M ago39:27

39:27

Today’s interview is with Martin Gill, VP, Research Director at Forrester. Martin joins me today to talk about their upcoming CX Summit EMEA that will be taking place in London (and digitally) from June 2–4, 2025. We explore the major themes of the event, including why businesses need to invest in both brand and customer experience to maximise grow…

1
Legacy transformation, agentic AI and how to get it right - Interview with Don Schuerman of Pega 35:03

3M ago35:03

35:03

Today’s interview is with Don Schuerman, the CTO at Pegasystems, an industry-leading low-code platform for AI-powered decisioning and workflow automation. Don joins me today to talk about the upcoming PegaWorld 2025 (PegaWorld is taking place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas from June 1st to the 3rd), Agentic AI (obvs.), how some organizations are imp…

1
Starting a resolution revolution - Interview with Tom Eggemeier, Adrian McDermott and Matthias Göhler of Zendesk 57:42

3M ago57:42

57:42

Today’s podcast is a two-parter and features interviews with Tom Eggemeier, Adrian McDermott and Matthias Göhler, which took place at Zendesk’s recent Relate event, which took place in Las Vegas on March 25th-27th. Tom Eggemeier is the Chief Executive Officer of Zendesk, Adrian McDermott is the Chief Technology Officer at Zendesk, and Matthias Göhl…

1
AI-driven search volumes are exploding and what brands should be doing about it - Interview with Vivek Pandya of Adobe 29:25

3M ago29:25

29:25

Today’s podcast is with Vivek Pandya, Director, Adobe Digital Insights at Adobe. I recently caught up with Vivek at Adobe Summit in Las Vegas to talk about some new research that Adobe just published called AI to Cart, which highlights the impact that Generative AI-powered chat interfaces are having on consumers, how that is changing their search a…

1
The art and the science of listening - Interview with Zig Serafin, Brad Anderson and Isabelle Zdatny of Qualtrics 1:03:43

3M ago1:03:43

1:03:43

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 …

1
Testing and experimentation is everyone's problem - Interview with Shafqat Islam of Optimizely 47:25

4M ago47:25

47:25

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 f…

1
There are five types of loyalty but only two are growing - Interview with Sara Richter of SAP Emarsys 54:05

4M ago54:05

54:05

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 thinkin…

1
Harnessing the contact center's potential as a real-time data gold mine - Interview with Suvi Lindfors of Netigate 49:53

5M ago49:53

49:53

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…

1
Life Lessons I Learned From Being A Line Cook - Interview with Ari Weinzweig 59:26

5M ago59:26

59:26

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 chapbo…

1
The natural home of the contact center is under the CMO - Interview with Alex Levin of Regal.io 43:37

5M ago43:37

43:37

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 cen…

1
The majority of agents don't find AI useful in their daily work - Interview with Martin Teasdale and Ed Creasey 53:05

5M ago53:05

53:05

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…

1
We got everyone involved in support and made our customer support metrics public - Interview with Kenji Hayward of Front 40:17

6M ago40:17

40:17

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 ma…

1
Data ontology and rethinking customer support metrics - Interview with Marcel Barrera of serviceMob Inc 1:05:15

6M ago1:05:15

1:05:15

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 …

1
The impact of influencer marketing on customer experience - Interview with Daphne Robertson of #paid 46:32

7M ago46:32

46:32

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…

1
An eight-step discovery process to help master the customer experience - Interview with Edwin Margulies of Nextiva 1:09:41

7M ago1:09:41

1:09:41

Today’s podcast is with Edwin Margulies, Chief Evangelist at Nextiva, a provider of a unified customer experience management platform. Edwin joins me today to talk about his new book, Mastering the Customer Experience, why it was over twenty-five years in the making, the eight-step discovery model at its heart and how it can help companies execute …

1
Pandemic maths and measuring all of marketing - Interview with Gregory Kennedy of Alembic Technologies 43:33

7M ago43:33

43:33

Today’s podcast is with Gregory Kennedy, VP of Marketing at Alembic Technologies, which provides AI-powered marketing analytics for C-suite executives. We talk about how Alembic is applying mathematics and AI, developed for identifying causes, treatments, and mortality during the pandemic, to tracing the results of marketing initiatives across the …

1
Broken funnels, flywheels and human messaging - Key insights from HubSpot executives at GROW Europe 2024 37:42

7M ago37:42

37:42

Today’s podcast features a series of interviews I conducted with HubSpot executives when I attended HubSpot’s recent GROW Europe 2024 event at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. First up is Daphne Costa Lopes, Global Director of Customer Success at HubSpot, who I talk to about why the marketing funnel is broken, why we should be thinking about a f…

1
It's not about the customer's journey with our platform, it's about the customer's journey - Interview with Nadine Macklin of Carto 43:22

8M ago43:22

43:22

Today’s interview is with Nadine Macklin, who is the Vice President of Customer Success at CARTO, a leading Location Intelligence platform, that enables organizations to use spatial data and analysis for more efficient delivery routes, better behavioural marketing, strategic store placements, and much much more. Nadine joins me today to talk about …

1
The third wave of customer support - Interview with Natasha Ratanshi-Stein of Surfboard 32:51

8M ago32:51

32:51

Today’s interview is with Natasha Ratanshi-Stein, CEO & Founder of Surfboard, an award-winning workforce management (WFM) software provider. Natasha joins me today to talk about the findings of their recently released 2024 customer service survey: The third wave of customer support, what might be stopping some customer service teams from not invest…

1
Basketball, false hustle and metrics that matter - Interview with Thomas Laird of Expivia/OttoQA 47:41

9M ago47:41

47:41

Today’s interview is with Thomas Laird, founder and CEO of both the Expivia Interaction Marketing Group, a USA BPO omnichannel contact center, and OttoQA, a next-generation solution for automating contact center quality assurance scoring. Thomas is also an author and joins me today to talk about his new book: false hustle: Transforming Customer Exp…

1
The five promises of personalization - Interview with Mark Abraham and David Edelman 53:33

9M ago53:33

53:33

Today’s interview is with Boston Consulting Group Senior Partner Mark F. Abraham and Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer David C. Edelman. They join me today to talk about their new book: PERSONALIZED: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI, defining personalization, the equation P=n×v2, the five promises of personalization, the technology that bra…

1
There are major tectonic shifts taking place in the outsourcing space right now - Interview with Craig Crisler of SupportNinja 55:28

9M ago55:28

55:28

Today’s interview is with Craig Crisler, CEO at SupportNinja, a modern provider of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services. Amidst lots of research reporting that despite all the investment in new tech, customer satisfaction is at an all-time low, I talk to Craig about where folks are going wrong with their investments, what’s going on in the B…

1
Within five years, contact center agents will become contact center specialists - Interview with Sam Wilson of 8x8 50:31

9M ago50:31

50:31

Today’s interview is with Sam Wilson, the CEO of 8x8, a provider of a unified cloud platform for contact center, business phone, video, chat, and APIs that helps companies of any size deliver differentiated customer experiences. I’ve spoken to Sam a couple of times, and every time, we have great conversations where we rummage around some of the big…

1
Building customer loyalty and a human connection in an increasingly competitive landscape - Interview with Conny Kalcher of Zurich Insurance 46:59

10M ago46:59

46:59

Today’s interview is with Conny Kalcher, Group Chief Customer Officer at Zurich Insurance. Conny joins me today to talk about her ambitions for Zurich to become the “Apple of Insurance”, her guiding philosophy around customer retention and revenue, how they are building customer loyalty and a human connection in an increasingly competitive landscap…

1
If it matters for your customer, it’s important - Interview with Tara DeZao, Simon Thorpe and James Dodkins of Pega 48:27

10M ago48:27

48:27

Today’s interview revisits and finalises the series of podcast conversations that I had with various folks whilst at Pegaworld earlier this. This episode is a combo affair and features a conversation with Tara DeZao, Director of Product Marketing, AdTech and MarTech, at Pega. It is then swiftly followed by a chat that I had with Simon Thorpe, Direc…

1
Print-era thinking is holding personalization efforts back - Interview with Vivek Sharma on Movable Ink 46:47

11M ago46:47

46:47

Today’s interview is with Vivek Sharma, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Movable Ink, which empowers marketers with scalable, omnichannel personalization through data activation and AI decisioning. Vivek joins me today to talk about their recent 2024 Audience of One research report, content creation as a key bottleneck in personalisation eff…

1
Agents view agent-assist technology as more important than a competitive salary - Interview with Gopi Polavarapu at Kore.ai 55:24

11M ago55:24

55:24

Today’s interview is with Gopi Polavarapu, Chief Solutions Officer at Kore.ai, a market leader in Conversational AI platform space. Gopi joins me today to talk about two reports that they recently published ( the Agent Experience (AX) Benchmark Report 2024 and the Customer Experience (CX) Benchmark Report 2024), why a bot must emulate a company’s b…

1
The Brand Connectome™ and why we are doing marketing all wrong - Interview with Leslie Zane 41:04

11M ago41:04

41:04

Today’s interview is with Leslie Zane, who is the Founder and CEO of Triggers, a brand consulting firm, and an authority on harnessing the instinctive mind to accelerate brand and business growth. Leslie joins me today to talk about her new book, THE POWER OF INSTINCT: The New Rules of Persuasion in Business and Life, why she thinks we have entered…

1
The customer isn’t always right - Interview with Daphne Costa Lopes of Hubspot 49:08

12M ago49:08

49:08

Today’s interview is with Daphne Costa Lopes, Global Director of Customer Success at HubSpot. Daphne joins me today to talk about customer success, why the customer isn’t always right, how siloed systems inhibit the delivery of tailored experiences, and what brands should be doing more of to drive customer-led growth. This interview follows on from…

1
There needs to be a really tight relationship between business strategy and target state architecture - Interview with Cale Urwin of Bupa 26:07

12M ago26:07

26:07

Today’s interview is with Cale Urwin, Director, Data, Digital & Marketing Health Services at Bupa. I caught up with Cale recently at PegaWorld in Las Vegas to talk about what stood for him at the event and how Bupa has evolved its customer engagement story and Customer Decision Hub capabilities in Australia from outbound to digital management and s…

1
The ongoing decline of brand loyalty, what’s driving it and what should be done about it - Interview with Simon Morris of ServiceNow 45:06

12M ago45:06

45:06

Today’s interview is with Simon Morris, the Area Vice President of Solution Consulting at ServiceNow. Simon joins me today to talk about ServiceNow’s new Consumer Voice Report 2024, the ongoing decline of brand loyalty, what’s driving it, why “The future of customer experience is high-tech meets high-touch” and some of the biggest lessons coming ou…

1
We've only just scratched the surface of artificial intelligence - Interview with Peter van der Putten of Pega 27:24

1y ago27:24

27:24

Today’s interview is with Dr Peter van der Putten, who is Director of the AI Lab at Pega and assistant professor of AI at Leiden University in The Netherlands. I caught up with Peter at the recent PegaWorld to talk about his highlights from the event, how to think about AI using a left/right brain thinking metaphor and what’s coming next in the ent…

1
Listening and taking action at scale - Interview with Ron Secrist of Citi and Christina Sansone of Dish 30:41

1y ago30:41

30:41

Today’s interview is a combo podcast in which I interview (separately) Ron Secrist, Managing Director, Head of Client Experience at Citi, and Christina Sansone, Vice President of CX Transformation at Dish. I met both of them when I attended Qualtrics’ X4 Summit in Salt Lake City last month and talked to them about their Qualtrics journey, what they…

1
How to get 2.7mln ‘Mom & Pop’ stores to adopt a new distributive trade platform - Interview with Prashaant Huria of Unilever 40:25

1y ago40:25

40:25

Today’s interview is with Prashaant Huria, who is the Chief Technology Officer for Unilever’s Digital Distributive Trade business. Prashaant and I connected after he spoke at Adobe’s Global Summit in Las Vegas back in late March. We talked about how they got 2.7mln ‘Mom & Pop’ stores to adopt a new distributive trade platform that Prashaant and his…

1
Lessons learnt from testing Copilot for service across tens of thousands of service engineers - Interview with Jeff Comstock of Microsoft 44:43

1y ago44:43

44:43

Today’s interview is with Jeff Comstock, CVP of Dynamics 365 Customer Service at Microsoft. Jeff joins me today to talk about Co-Pilot for Service, the impact it is having on the agent experience and also customer/business outcomes, their experience trialling it extensively with their own customer service engineers, how their early adopter clients …

1
Personalisation and the pink elephant in the room - Interview with Emma Springham of TSB 21:04

1y ago21:04

21:04

Today’s interview is with Emma Springham, Chief Marketing Officer at TSB, a British retail and commercial bank. I met Emma at Adobe’s Global Summit in Las Vegas after she spoke on the Main Stage. Emma and I talk about the importance of your personal brand in marketing and CX leadership, the pink elephant in the room, what personalisation means for …

1
Making in-store grocery shopping fun and going viral on TikTok - Interview with David McIntosh of Instacart 42:07

1y ago42:07

42:07

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 follo…

1
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 22:04

1y ago22:04

22:04

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 e…

1
The Generative AI landscape: The good, the bad and the boring - Interview with Don Schuerman of Pega 38:45

1y ago38:45

38:45

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 …

1
Episode 500: Some reflections on the last 13 years 44:57

1y ago44:57

44:57

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 ge…

1
Leadership, storytelling and why it is an art and it needs to be taught - Interview with Gareth Higgins 1:09:41

1y ago1:09:41

1:09:41

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 jour…

1
You don't get promoted for teaching people how to wash their hands - Interview with James Lawther 55:16

1+ y ago55:16

55:16

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, …

1
What happens when you give data back to people? - Interview with Jamie Smith of Customer Futures 56:53

1+ y ago56:53

56:53

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 emergin…