Punk CX: Customer Experience Insights with Adrian Swinscoe

Today’s episode of the Punk CX podcast features a series of interviews that I conducted at Qualtrics’ recent X4 event in Seattle and features conversations with Qualtrics executives at the event: Brad Anderson, President of Products, UX, Engineering & Security;Mark Hammond, SVP Core AI - starting at 14:59;Assaf Keren, SVP and Chief Security Officer - starting at 14:59; andAli Henriques, Executive Director of Market Research - starting at 59:19. We discuss the highlights and themes of the event, the experience gap, the future of AI, and what organisations should be considering, alongside topics such as the role of security and trust in customer experience and synthetic panels, also known as customer simulation models. There’s a lot in there, so do check it out. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The enduring and evolving ‘craft’ of customer support – Interview with Nick Francis – and is number 579 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 episode of the Punk CX podcast features Nick Francis, one of the co-founders of Help Scout, a leading customer support platform, who after operating as the CEO for the last 15 years stepped back from the position in late 2025 and has now moved into the Chairman role. I first talked to Nick on the podcast back in 2017 and he joins me today to talk about his time as CEO at Help Scout, some of the biggest challenges he faced during his tenure, the lessons he learned, the ‘craft’ of customer support, and with the emergence and rapid evolution of AI-powered technology, how he sees support evolving in the coming years. This interview follows on from my recent interview – How executives can turn fragmented CX efforts into enterprise-wide customer obsession – Interview with Ray Gerber – and is number 578 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 episode of the Punk CX podcast features Raymond Gerber, the Co-Founder of the Institute for Journey Management (I4JM), Founder of JourneyCentric-CX and author of three new books. He joins me today to talk about the third book (Journey to Customer Obsession- A Leadership Blueprint for CX Maturity and Enterprise Transformation: How executives can turn fragmented CX efforts into enterprise-wide customer obsession), which is effectively the executive edition of the other two books. We talk about the 9-stage journey that organisations go through on the road to customer obsession, journey management and orchestration, why many organisations often stumble into the first stage, Awareness, by accident, the non-negotiable output of consideration, the second stage of the journey, a brief overview of the other stages, and how a leader and their team should get started with all of this. This interview follows on from my recent interview – More Than A Motto – Interview with Justin Robbins of Metric Sherpa – and is number 577 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 episode of the Punk CX podcast features Justin Robbins, Founder & Principal Analyst at Metric Sherpa, Inc and a newly minted author. Justin joins me to talk about his new book called: More Than A Motto: Reignite Your Purpose, Rediscover Your Joy At Work. We discuss the highlights from the book, including the leadership blind spot, that burnout is a system outcome, not a personal failure, why purpose breaks without rhythm, and the RHYTHM model. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The split personality disorder plaguing many brands – Interview with Ping Wu of Cresta – and is number 576 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 episode features a chat I had recently with Ping Wu, CEO of Cresta. We chat about a range of issues, including how many brands seem to be suffering from a split personality disorder, why CRM technology is fundamentally not the right type of technology to develop the type of conversational intelligence that is needed to drive better outcomes and why taking an automation-only approach to customer support is like ‘taking a shower with a raincoat on.’ This interview follows on from my recent interview – Transforming experience for business outcomes – Interview with Sid Banerjee, Mike Murchison and Paloma Paraja – and is number 575 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 episode of the Punk CX podcast features three interviews I recorded whilst at Medallia’s Experience event in Las Vegas on the 10th, 11th and 12th February. The interviews are with Sid Banerjee, Chief Strategy Officer at Medallia, Mike Murchison, co-founder and CEO of Ada, and Paloma Paraja, Customer Experience Manager at Santalucia Seguros. We cover the big themes of the conference, the latest developments at Medallia, agentic CX, building an ACX team, the importance of context in empathy and what it takes to deliver an award-winning customer experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The dangers of a CCaaS monoculture – Interview with Paul Hughes of Mitel – and is number 574 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 episode of the Punk CX podcast features Paul Hughes, who is Head of Direct Sales for the UKISA region at Mitel, where he helps organisations use technology to deliver human experiences built on trust, empathy, loyalty, and logic. Paul joins me today to talk about why hybrid is the new default and not a compromise, the dangers of a CCaaS monoculture, the problem with AI sameness and why most bots feel identical, linking UC/CX investment to business outcomes like revenue, resilience, and wellbeing as well as Paul’s best advice, his Punk CX brand and his very own good news story. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Loyalty is the core economic engine – Interview with Sara Richter and Fred Reichheld – and is number 573 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 episode of the Punk CX podcast features Sara Richter, CMO at SAP Emarsys, and Fred Reichheld, Creator of the Net Promoter System®, Bain Fellow, and loyalty visionary. Sara and Fred join me on the podcast to talk about how the organisations that win treat NPS as a management system rather than a one-off score, the state of loyalty, including the impact that AI is having on loyalty, the idea of Earned Growth Rate that was introduced in Net Promoter 3.0 and what brands should be focusing on to build and grow their loyal customer base. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Accessibility drives customer acquisition – Interview with Joel Kellhofer of SignWow – and is number 572 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 episode of the Punk CX podcast is with Joel Kellhofer, CEO of SignWow, which offers business BSL solutions, including Video Relay Service & Video Remote Interpreting, to make services accessible to Deaf customers. We talk about Joel’s background and experiences as a Deaf founder, some of the everyday communication barriers Deaf people face in public services, healthcare, hospitality, and retail, why brands often don’t design experiences that work for everyone, what they should be doing differently, and how SignWow can help. We finish off with some advice for brands looking to build standout, inclusive customer experiences, Joel’s Punk CX brand, and his very own good news story. Note: Now, I should point out that today’s episode is a little different. Given that Joel is deaf, we are joined by his colleague, Emma McQuillan, Chief Interpreting Officer (CIO) at SignWow, who will be interpreting for us in real time. What I should also point out for those of you watching the video version of this podcast or listening to the audio version, you’ll experience some pauses after I ask my questions as Joel and Emma communicate via sign language before Emma answers the questions on Joel’s behalf. I hope that makes sense. This interview follows on from my recent interview – From product-led innovation to a service-led experience model – Interview with Deborah Honig of Samsung UK & Ireland – and is number 571 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 episode of the Punk CX podcast is with Deborah Honig, Chief Customer Officer at Samsung UK & Ireland. Deborah joins me today to talk about shifting Samsung’s UK & Ireland business from innovation-led storytelling to service-led experiences, the servitization process, how they are building AI into their products, how they are building trust with customers to fuel adoption, how customers are reacting to that and what’s next for Samsung and their move towards service-led experiences. Given that Deborah is deeply immersed in this space, we finish off with the trends and things she expects to see/emerge in the coming 12 months, her best advice for brands wanting to build standout customer experiences, her Punk CX brand, and her very own good news story. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Automate problems, not just symptoms – Interview with Nick Clark of BCG – and is number 570 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.