Punk CX: Customer Experience Insights with Adrian Swinscoe

Today’s interview is with David Politis, who is founder and CEO of BetterCloud, which provides critical insights, automated management, and intelligent data security for cloud office platforms. David joins me today to talk about proactive customer service, putting it into practice, how they make it work for their company and how it is allowing to differentiate themselves from their competition. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Innovation, customer experience and co-design partnerships with your customers – Interview with Gary Miles of Amdocs – and is number 156 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to their customers.

Today’s interview is with Michael Sharkey, Co-founder & CEO, and Guy Marion, CMO, of Autopilot, a Saas company that provides easy and visual marketing software for automating the customer journey. Michael and Guy join me today to talk about what they are doing, how they are working on creating customer journeys and creating unique marketing experiences that don’t feel like marketing and the impact of this type of approach on customer engagement and customer experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – What you do when proactive customer service is in your DNA – Interview with David Politis of BetterCloud – and is number 157 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to their customers. NOTE: The audio from Michael and Guy is a little jumpy in places but it is still ok to listen to. The vagaries of technology and telephone line connections! Apologies.

Today’s interview is with Manuel Grenacher, who is the founder & CEO of Mila, a technology company which is helping large organisations crowd source their customer service and build extended service communities around their products and services. Manuel joins me to today to talk about what they are doing, why they are helping companies create those extended customer service communities and how they are doing it. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Next generation marketing automation that drives real customer engagement- Interview with Michael Sharkey and Guy Marion of Autopilot– and is number 158 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to their customers.

Today’s interview is with Rory Sutherland who is Vice-Chairman, Ogilvy & Mather UK and co-founder of #ogilvychange. The Ogilvy & Mather Group UK is made up of 10 companies that work across a range of marketing disciplines. #ogilvychange is their specialist behavioural science practice that uses the latest thinking in cognitive psychology, social psychology and behavioural economics to help their clients create behavioural change in the real world. Rory is a leading thinker in the marketing and advertising space and a huge proponent of how the application of insights from cognitive psychology and behavioural economics can positively impact business and customers. As a result, Rory joins me today to talk about behavioural economics, psychology, customer experience, the big impact that small changes can have and what business can and should be learning and doing with these insights. This interview follows on from my recent interview – How to enhance, extend and crowd source your in-field customer service – Interview with Manuel Grenacher of Mila – and is number 159 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to their customers.

Today’s interview is with Fiona McSwein, Chief Customer Officer at Simply Business, the UK’s favourite business insurance broker. They’ve just been awarded first place in The Sunday Times’ 100 Best Small Companies to Work For list (mid-sized category) this year. They are also a Sunday Times Tech Track 100 company and were recently named in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA. Fiona joins me today to talk about what it takes to build an award winning and customer centric culture. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Behavioural science, customer experience and why we should test more things – Interview with Rory Sutherland of #ogilvychange – and is number 160 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to their customers.

Today’s interview is with Geraldine McBride, CEO of MyWave, a next generation CRM solution that puts the customer in charge of their data and their experience. You might remember that I spoke to Geraldine just over a year ago (Moving from the era of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to the era of CMR (Customer Managed Relationships) and this interview was an opportunity to catch up and see what’s been happening in the data, privacy and development of the the emerging Personal Information Management (PIM)/Customer Managed Relationship (CMR) space. This interview follows on from my recent interview – What it takes to build an award winning and customer centric culture – Interview with Fiona McSwein of Simply Business – and is number 161 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to their customers.

Today’s interview is with Ian Fitzpatrick, Chief Strategy Officer and founding partner at Almighty, a Boston-based digital agency that helps its clients reimagine what it means to be their customer, and build tools, systems and experiences that support those relationships. They recently published a new report called Hearts, then Charts: a framework for meaningful approaches to customer experience that explores the challenges that organisations face in becoming customer centric and what they need to do to achieve that. He joins me today to talk about their research and what brands and leaders can learn from it. Hat tip to Ian Golding for putting me onto the report via his blog. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Let’s stop talking about data and start talking about outcomes – Interview with Geraldine McBride of MyWave – and is number 162 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to their customers.

Today’s interview is with Gareth Jones, Visiting Professor at the IE Business School, Madrid, and a Fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School. He is also a founding partner of Creative Management Associates (CMA), a consultancy focused on organisations where creativity is a source of competitive strength. Gareth along with co-author Rob Goffee recently published a new book called Why Should Anyone Work Here? that explores what it takes to create an authentic organisation. Gareth joins me today to talk about the book, the research behind the book and the ideas within it. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Customer experience begins with the empowering of people to affect outcomes – Interview with Ian Fitzpatrick of Almighty – and is number 163 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to their customers.

Today’s interview is with Ben Reason, founding partner of Livework, a leading service design firm. They help organisations with customer related challenges and how they affect the business and the organisation. Ben along with Lavrans Løvlie and Melvin Brand Flu, two other Livework partners, has recently published a new book called Service Design for Business: A Practical Guide to Optimizing the Customer Experience. Ben joins me today to talk about the book, what they have learnt, service design and how firms can use it to improve their customer experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Why Should Anyone Work Here? – Interview with Gareth Jones – and is number 164 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to their customers.

Today’s interview is with Michael Schneider who is the founder & CEO of Los Angeles-based Service (getservice.com), which is providing “on demand customer service” - this means that they helping consumers resolve issues that they have with businesses by taking them off their hands and managing their resolution. Michael joins me today to talk about what they are up to, how they do it, what he has learnt over the last few months and where they are going next. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The only person that everyone has in common is the customer – Interview with Ben Reason of Livework – and is number 165 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to their customers.