Punk CX: Customer Experience Insights with Adrian Swinscoe

Today’s episode of the Punk CX podcast features a chat I had with Anna Falcon, VP of CX Transformation at MCA Connect - a Grant Thornton Company . We talk about why B2B firms must deliver B2C‑level experiences or risk losing relevance, what’s driving this imperative, why so many AI initiatives and transformations fail to deliver value, and why we need to put humans at the centre of transformation. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Why contact deflection creates quiet loyalty erosion – Interview with Pasquale DeMaio, VP of Amazon Connect Customer – and is number 602 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 a chat I had with Pasquale DeMaio, Vice President and General Manager of Amazon Connect Customer , Amazon Web Services’ AI-powered customer experience platform, which supports more than 20 million customer interactions daily across 42 countries. We talk about how every customer now expects concierge-level treatment, regardless of how much they spend; the implications for brands; the phenomenon of ‘quiet loyalty erosion’; why loyalty is the only metric that matters now; human superpowers; and how customer experience (i.e. the contact centre space) has shifted from cost center to strategic growth driver. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Reinventing the organisation to drive better customer and employee outcomes – Interview with Ricardo Semler – and is number 601 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 a chat I had with Ricardo Semler, a champion of radical, employee-friendly corporate democracy, a vision he successfully realised during his 40 years as CEO of Semco Partners. He went on to build Semco Style Institute (SSI) on that foundation and has shared its learnings with companies across the world in the intervening years. This chat was a bit of a fan-boy moment for me, as I read his first book, Maverick , back in the 1990s. It blew my mind then and continues to inspire me today. He joins me today to talk about a new ebook he recently published, The End of The Boss . We talk about the book, the Relevance Imperative, how today’s corporations are structurally unprepared for the forces reshaping work, particularly AI and remote autonomy, to say nothing of rebellious Gen Z and Gen Alpha talent, a new organisational architecture: the Round Pyramid, why employees should be able to hire and fire their own bosses, and the example of the Botanique Hotel & Spa, which applied the Round Pyramid in practice and what happened to customer, employee and business outcomes. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Why your contact centre cost model is broken – Interview with Robert Bradshaw of WiserOwl – and is number 600 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 a chat I had with Robert Bradshaw, the founder and president of WiserOwl , a consulting firm that measures what contact centre work actually costs. We talk about how contact centres measure activity with extraordinary precision but cost it using an average that erases all of that precision, what that means in practice, the impact of AI on all of that, what contact centre leaders should be doing instead, and how using actual cost data solves the two most important contact centre problems in the enterprise. It’s a fascinating discussion. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Why digital accessibility is no longer optional in an AI-first world – Interview with Jeff Coyle of Siteimprove – and is number 599 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 a chat I had with Jeff Coyle, Head of Strategy at Siteimprove , an agentic content intelligence platform designed to unify accessibility, analytics, SEO/AEO, and content strategy. We talk about the idea that digital accessibility has often been treated as a compliance obligation or a “mission-driven initiative” by enterprise organisations, but AI is now making that untenable. We also cover why digitally accessible information has a significant and positive impact from a technical SEO standpoint, the impact of AI-powered search (AEO/GEO) on all of this, and what brands should be doing to address this issue. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Using generative agent simulations to drive better experience outcomes in healthcare – Interview with Sri Narasimhan of CVS Health – and is number 598 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 a chat I had with Sri Narasimhan, the VP of Enterprise Customer Experience and Insights at CVS Health , where he leads efforts to drive meaningful organisational changes based on customer, client, and patient feedback. We talk about a whitepaper that he recently co-authored with Simile CEO Joon Park on using generative agent simulations in health care, the problem they are solving with this new approach, whether that means they will no longer be doing research with ‘real’ customers, how they have built their AI “agentic twins”, the impact of this approach and how their customers (patients) are responding to their use of AI. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Start with Strategy, Iterate Like a Band – Interview with Craig Crisler of SupportNinja – and is number 597 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 a chat I had with Craig Crisler, CEO at SupportNinja . Craig and I discuss why the CX industry is at an inflection point, why most CX problems aren’t actually people problems, how AI is exposing (and sometimes worsening) CX gaps, how new agents will learn in the wake of large-scale automation of many simple and routine tasks, and how more experienced agents will ‘rest’ when their work is focused solely on more complex issues, amongst other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The NiCE World London Takeover of the Punk CX Podcast Part Two – and is number 596 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.

Welcome to the NiCE World London Takeover of the Punk CX Podcast. This is Part Two of a two-part series of chats that I had with NiCE executives, a couple of their clients and an analyst while at NiCE World London at the beginning of July. In Part Two, I have a chat with Taz Chowdhury, Consultant and former Strategic Delivery Lead, Birmingham City Council and follow that up with a chat with Oru Mohiuddin, Research Director, IDC . This interview follows on from my recent interview – The NiCE World London Takeover of the Punk CX Podcast Part One – and is number 595 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.

Welcome to the NiCE World London Takeover of the Punk CX Podcast. This is Part One of a two-part series of chats that I had with NiCE executives, a couple of their clients and an analyst while at NiCE World London last week. In Part One, I have a chat with Michelle Cooper, Chief Marketing Officer at NiCE, and follow that up with a chat with Chris Herbert, Director of Customer Service - Service Delivery at Openreach (a NiCE Cognigy client), and Giles Bryan, General Manager of Proactive AI at NiCE. This interview follows on from my recent interview – The emerging world of machine customers – Interview with Katja Forbes – and is number 594 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 a chat I had with Katja Forbes, Author, Advisor & Keynote Speaker, about her new book: Machine Customers: The Evolution has Begun: How AI that buys is changing everything . We talk about what exactly a machine customer is, what proportion of both B2B and B2C transactions are likely to be driven by machine customers in five years time, if we are seeing Doc Searls’ Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) brought to life with this, what sort of agents will there be, who will provide them and what happens to “shopping”…..so many questions! This interview follows on from my recent interview – Responsible AI isn’t an optional layer, it must be foundational – Interviews from Pegaworld 2026 Pt2 – and is number 593 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 Part Two of a two-parter featuring a series of chats I had with Pega executives while at Pegaworld in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. In this episode, I talk with Matt Healy, Senior Director, Product Strategy & Marketing at Pega, and Tara DeZao, Senior Product Marketing Director at Pega. Some of the things we cover include the big themes and takeaways from the event, the future of customer service, ethical AI, the customer engagement blueprint and the new and exciting agentic capabilities of Customer Engagement Studio. This interview follows on from my recent interview with Ken Stillwell, COO & CFO at Pega and Peter Lacroix, Head of Low-Code, Achmea , a long-time customer of Pega’s, called Moving from Experimental Pilots to Proven CX Outcomes – and is number 592 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. #PegaPartner

Today’s episode of the Punk CX podcast is Part One of a two-parter featuring a series of chats I had with Pega executives and one of their clients while at Pegaworld in Las Vegas last week. In this episode, I talk with Ken Stillwell, COO & CFO at Pega and Peter Lacroix, Head of Low-Code, Achmea , a long-time customer of Pega’s. Some of the things we cover include the big themes and takeaways from the event, a CFO's perspective on tokenmaxxing and tokenomics, Pega’s response, Achmea’s journey with Pega, how they are using various parts of their platform and the impact on their customers and business. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Customer experience is becoming autonomous – Interview with Andrew Bialecki of Klaviyo – and is number 591 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. #PegaPartner

Today’s episode of the Punk CX podcast features a chat I had with Andrew Bialecki, the co-founder and co-CEO of Klaviyo , the autonomous B2C CRM that helps brands understand who their customers actually are – so every interaction feels personal. We talk about how customer experience is becoming autonomous, why every brand is becoming a service company, what organizations will need to do to make that shift, why the future is agent-to-agent, what the implications for brands are, and how we are also moving from vibe coding to vibe marketing. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Speed without alignment creates experience debt – Interview with Jamie Homen of Mural – and is number 590 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 a chat I had with Jamie Homen, Chief Customer Officer at Mural , a leading visual work platform. Jamie and I talk about why speed without alignment creates experience debt, the role AI is playing in that, how organizations should be thinking about using customer interaction data to influence product and roadmap prioritisation decisions, and why alignment is often a market design problem, not just a cultural one. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Insights from Zendesk Relate – Interview with Tom Eggemeier, Shana Simmons and Cristina Fonseca – and is number 589 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 a series of interviews that I conducted with Zendesk executives while at Relate , their annual customer event in Denver last week. I talked to Tom Eggemeier, CEO, Zendesk, Shana Simmons, CLO, Zendesk, and Cristina Fonseca, VP Product, Zendesk. Some of the things we cover include the big themes and takeaways from the event, including some background on the big product announcements, AI trust and why trust is a core differentiator, how Zendesk are working with clients to help them build trust with their customers, the future of work and how we can prepare ourselves and our teams for that. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Trust and transparency will be the CX differentiators of the future – Interview with Chris Angus of 8×8 – and is number 588 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 a recent conversation I had with Chris Angus, VP Sales EMEA at 8x8 , a leading contact center and communications software provider. Chris and I talk about why AI is now table stakes in CX, but trust is not, where organizations are falling down when it comes to establishing trust with their customers, responsible AI, why human oversight is essential to great CX, auditability, transparency and why governance and clearer guardrails will shape the next phase of AI in CX. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Using orchestrated serendipity allowed one brand to improve its conversion rate by 15% – Interview with Gregg Johnson of Invoca – and is number 587 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 a recent conversation I had with Gregg Johnson, CEO of Invoca , a leading revenue execution platform. Gregg and I recorded this podcast while we were both at Adobe Summit in Las Vegas recently. We talk about why the buying experience is broken at the exact moment customers need help most, why trust is the competitive moat, whether we will see more and more brands develop their own specific SLMs, what brands should be doing to build up trust with customers and their recent research which finds that while 86% of marketers believe AI improves the buying experience, only 35% of consumers agree and which brands are getting it right. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Why you don’t need a separate AI strategy – Interview with Charlene Li – and is number 586 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 a recent conversation I had with Charlene Li about her new book, Winning with AI: The 90-Day Blueprint for Success (co-authored with Dr Katia Walsh). We talk about why 90 Days, why you don’t need a separate AI strategy, why most AI initiatives fail and fail to improve customer outcomes, the use case trap, the shift that leaders need to make from "knowing" to continuous learning and the five traits of an AI-ready culture. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Harnessing AI to orchestrate customer experiences at scale – Interviews with Luc Dammann, Nina Caruso & Vivek Pandya of Adobe – and is number 585 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 a series of interviews that I conducted with Adobe executives while at Adobe Summit last week in Las Vegas. I talked to Luc Dammann, President EMEA, Adobe and his colleagues Nina Caruso, Group Product Marketing Manager, Real-Time CDP, Adobe and Vivek Pandya, Lead Insights Analyst, Adobe and we covered the big themes and takeaways from the event, whether we are at an inflection point when it comes to agentic AI, why we should be thinking about people and process over technology, the latest trends in AI and CX, how they are impacting brands, and what brands should be doing about it. You can catch up with all of the sessions from Adobe Summit on demand here . This interview follows on from my recent interview – The future of storytelling – Interview with Charles Melcher – and is number 584 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 a recent chat I had with Charles Melcher, Founder and CEO of Future of Storytelling and the author of a big new book called THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING: How Immersive Experiences are Transforming Our World . Charles joins me to talk about his new book, why we often find it hard to tell stories in different contexts, and the role of storytelling in customer engagement, service and experience. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Moving past bolt-on AI to strategic reimagination – Interview with Don Schuerman of Pega – and is number 583 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.