Punk CX: Customer Experience Insights with Adrian Swinscoe

Today’s interview is with Lauren Currie OBE, the CEO of Stride. They are on a mission to democratise leadership development. Lauren joins me today to talk about leadership, Stride, the problem with leadership development, what they are trying to do to solve this problem and what we should all be doing to develop their our own leadership skills and experience capabilities. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Leading a digital transformation that will never end – Interview with Duncan Macdonald of UPC Switzerland – and is number 342 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: A big thank you goes out to the folks at Pega for sponsoring my podcast for the coming month. Registration for PegaWorld iNspire, the annual conference from Pegasystems, is free. Find out out more and register at www.pegaworld.com

Today’s interview is with Duncan Macdonald, Chief Information Officer (CIO) at UPC Switzerland, which is part of the Liberty Global group. Duncan joins me today to talk about leadership, what it takes to really empower people, his journey to where he is now and how he had to unlearn a lot of things in order to lead the way that he now does. Thanks go to the folks at Pega who help set this interview up after I saw a video of Duncan talking about his work and leadership style that was featured as part of Pega’s Customer Engagement Summit (CES) online event on April 1st. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Customer experience, innovation, artificial intelligence, culture….a look inside Amazon – Interview with Claire Whitaker – and is number 341 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that 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 interview is with Claire Whitaker, a product and artificial intelligence (AI) consultant, who over the last nine years has worked in lean innovation, customer experience (CX), product management and technology including AI teams at top companies across industries, including Amazon. Claire joins me today to share some insights from her experience and, particularly, from her time at Amazon. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The nature of service and how we’ve grown up with a service economy which is now finding it very hard to actually serve customers – Interview with Joel Bailey of EY Seren – and is number 340 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that 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 interview is with Joel Bailey, who is a Director at EY Seren, the global design consultancy within EY. Joel is a friend of mine, someone I have worked with and a really interesting thinker when it comes to service. Our conversation was precipitated by the publication of an article he wrote (2020: A new decade of service) earlier this year. So, we set up a time to chat to talk about why we should leave the experience economy behind, that service is the element that connects customer experience and employee experience and the idea that we need to define service anew. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Authentic leadership is just the rebranding of transformational leadership with some of the caffeine taken out – Interview with Professor Dennis Tourish - and is number 339 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that 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 interview is with Dennis Tourish who is Professor of Leadership and Organisation Studies at University of Sussex Business School. Dennis joins me today to talk about the problems plaguing modern academic management and leadership research, challenges facing the modern organisation and leaders, progressive business and the problems with current leadership thinking. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Customer experience is more than f***ing metrics – Interview with Sydney Brouwer – and is number 338 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that 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 interview is with Sydney Brouwer, a customer experience speaker, author and masterclass leader. However, this one is a little different as this time Sydney turns the tables and interviews me for his podcast. We had a great conversation so I thought I would share it with you nice folks over here :) Sydney and I talk about the state of customer experience, Punk CX, what it means to be a punk and what we should be thinking about when it comes to improving customer experience. You can find the original discussion and Sydney’s podcast here. This interview follows on from my recent interview – How anarchy and Emma Goldman inspires one of the coolest companies in America – Interview with Ari Weinzweig of Zingermans – and is number 337 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that 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 interview is with Ari Weinzweig is CEO and co-founding partner of Zingerman's Community of Businesses, a gourmet food business group headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Inc. Magazine described Zingerman's as the "Coolest Small Company in America”. Meanwhile, they have been featured in the Harvard Business Review and on MSNBC for their business practices and Bo Burlingham in his book, Small Giants, cited Zingerman's as a model for organizations that define success more creatively than just "getting as big as we can as fast as we can”. Ari joins me today to talk about what anarchy can teach us about leadership, culture and customer service, Emma Goldman, building a progressive business and what we should be thinking about when it comes to improving customer experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – We are moving from a ticketing age to a conversational age – Interview with Mads Fosselius of Dixa – and is number 336 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that 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 interview is with Mads Fosselius, CEO of Dixa, a global customer service tech company that is on a mission to help brands build friendships with their customers, break down technology silos and eliminate bad customer service. Mads joins me today to talk about ticketing, why we are moving into a conversational age, what’s wrong with many ticketing systems and what we should be thinking about when it comes to improving customer experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Corporate transformation will soon switch from digital to purpose – Interview with Mark Curtis of Fjord – and is number 335 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that 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 interview is with Mark Curtis, Chief Client Officer at Fjord (part of Accenture Interactive). Mark joins me today to talk about Fjord’s new Trends 2020 report, some of the trends, what they mean and what we should be thinking about when it comes to improving customer experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Rethinking the experience of life insurance – Interview with Adam Weinberg of Haven Life – and is number 334 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that 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 interview is with Adam Weinberg, the brand director at Haven Life, a digital life insurance agency that’s backed and wholly owned by MassMutual. Adam joins me today to talk about innovating in a very traditional industry, magic tricks, what we can learn from Haven Life’s experience and what are the main things that we should be doing to improve the customer’s experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – If you don’t ignore your customers and create a service culture then you won’t have to worry about the competition – Interview with Micah Solomon – and is number 333 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.