CX Files – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Celebrate CX Files Episode 400 — Join Mark Hillary and Peter Ryan Live in London for an Exclusive Networking Event! CX Files Episode 400 Live in London – January 21, 2026

Join Mark Hillary and Peter Ryan, co-hosts of the CX Files podcast, for a special live networking event in London as they celebrate the show's 400th episode!

This informal evening brings together members of the global Customer Experience (CX) community for drinks, conversation, and connection.

Mark will be flying in from São Paulo, Brazil, and Peter from Montreal, Canada — a rare chance to meet both hosts in person. They will also have copies of the CX Files book - to be launched at this event in London.

During the event, Mark and Peter will record a short live segment for the 400th episode in front of the audience, marking this milestone moment in the CX Files journey.

Tickets are free, but you do need to register so we can control the numbers. Click this link to register your place for this live CX Files event.

https://cxfiles.eventbrite.com

 

In this special episode of the CX Files, we are looking to the end of 2025 and into 2026.

Peter Ryan called Paul Smith and David Rickard - two expert advisers on CX and BPO - to talk about what just happened in 2025 and their top predictions for CX in 2026.

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Paul Smith

Principal Consultant, Quinn Growth Advisers 

Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

https://www.linkedin.com/in/swsalesexec/

https://quinngrowthadvisors.com/

 

David Rickard

Partner, Everest Group

Clanfield - near Portsmouth, UK

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwrickard/

https://www.everestgrp.com/

 

Summary:
In the CX Files podcast episode 399, hosts Mark Hillary and Peter Ryan discuss 2025 highlights and 2026 predictions with Paul Smith from Quinn Growth Advisors and David Rickard from Everest Group. Key points include the significant AI hype in 2025, the lack of differentiation in the market, and the slow progress of AI in customer experience (CX). They predict that 2026 will see more AI pilots moving into production, increased competition from in-house GCC capabilities, and a need for better buyer-seller communication. They also emphasize the importance of understanding customer needs and the potential impact of an AI bubble.

 

Traci Freeman holds a number of roles, including as the managing member of Believe Consulting, but in this conversation we focused on her role as a partner of the Africa Federation of GBS Associations.

This federation is aimed at unlocking Africa's potential in the BPO, CX and ITO sectors. Enhancing Africa's standing as a hub for innovation, knowledge exchange, and technological advancement, promoting partnerships, youth employment, and digital enablement while driving best practices and standards.

Mark Hillary called Traci at her base in Johnannesburg, South Africa to talk about the work of the federation and the opportunities for CX and BPO across all of Africa.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracifreeman/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/africa-gbs-federation/

https://africagbsfederation.org/

SUMMARY

Mark Hillary and Peter Ryan discuss the Africa Federation of GBS Associations, an initiative led by  a team including Traci Freeman to promote Global Business Services (GBS), Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), and IT services across Africa. The federation aims to manage perceptions of Africa as a high-value destination, foster knowledge sharing, and support regional development. Key countries like Egypt and South Africa are leveraging their experience to help emerging markets like Kenya, Rwanda, and Ghana. The federation, launched in February 2024, includes members from various African countries and aims to host global community engagement events by 2026-2027.

Jo Garland is an experienced CX professional. She is based in Surrey in the UK, close to London.

In this interview Jo is speaking in a personal capacity as Peter Ryan called to ask about her experience of a Master's Degree in Leadership at Henley Business School. Jo graduated in 2021 with a distinction so the research was clearly appreciated by the course supervisors.

Jo used the experience of the pandemic to focus her research on how the CX and BPO environment changed because of the move to a work-from-home and hybrid business model.

We have often talked about the corporate experience of WFH on this podcast, but in this interview Jo goes into more detail on how WFH looks from a research perspective.

How did office-based employees emulate the experience of working in a team when they all had to work from home? What worked and what is essential now that this is now normal? How can managers with remote teams ensure that they enable the creation of teams, no matter how the team is constructed  and how are we building a flexible future for CX?

Do you have the leadership skills and structures in place to really manage in a remote environment?

These are the questions that Jo and Peter explore in this edition of the CX Files

https://www.henley.ac.uk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/garland-jo/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-ryan-montreal/

Episode 300 of CX Files... here's to another 300 in the future! Mark & Peter

Randy Arellano is the head of sales and marketing at DATAMARK. He is based in Dallas, Texas. 

DATAMARK offers contact center and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services with delivery centers in the US, India, and Mexico.

In this discussion with Mark Hillary, Randy talks about how rapidly the entire BPO landscape has progessed since the start of this decade. The period of the pandemic created a wave of flexible working practices and work-from-home (WFH) that has persisted across the industry.

This has also led to new expectations around data security - to protect customer data when services are being delivered using a hybrid of WFH and in-office teams.

Randy also talks about how AI is offering new opportunities to support agents inside the contact center and improve the customer experience. 

With all these developments available equally to the big and medium players, Randy argues that there is no longer a need to work with the giant BPOs if you want to access the latest technology and flexible working practices - it is equally possible in mid-size partners now.

A modern BPO is not stronger just because they have more agents. They are stronger because they have insight and ideas for how to transform CX processes and the ability to work in partnership with their clients - size is no longer a marker of service quality.

BPO has transformed inside this decade and we are only at 2024 - listen to Randy explain what has changed and why it is important for CX executives to understand this evolution.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/randyarellano/

https://datamark.net/

 

Every analyst and journalist is saying that AI will be important in 2024. It's obvious... but what are the less obvious predictions we can make for CX trends in the new year?

CX Files host Peter Ryan (Canada) hosted a discussion focused on CX in 2024 featuring:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-ryan-montreal/

Mark Hillary 

CX Files co-host (Brazil)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhillary/

Lian Rowlands

Principal Consultant, Tayma Solutions (UK)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lian-rowlands-a26119/

Stephen Loynd

Founder and Principal Analyst, TrendzOwl (USA)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenloynd/

 

 

 

It's the festive season. Mark and Peter have decorated the podcast for Christmas. Although many people will now be off work for the Holidays there are millions of CX agents out there still helping customers to get their presents on time.

In this final CX Files of 2023, Mark and Peter look back at the key CX trends of 2023 and some of their favourite interviews from the year.

CX Files will return on January 11 with a panel of expert analysts exploring the trends to watch for in 2024.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhillary/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-ryan-montreal/

 

 

Adrian Swinscoe is well known in the CX community as an adviser, speaker, and writer. His Punk CX book argued for a new approach to CX and he also publishes the Punk CX podcast. Adrian also writes about CX in the business magazine Forbes. He is based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

In this conversation with Peter Ryan, Adrian argues for a new approach to designing and managing CX - especially when hiring a customer service specialist. He argues for genuine partnership rather than the traditional client and supplier relationship.

The punk approach is to tear up the traditiional rules and try something new.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianswinscoe/

https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/

 

In this discussion, Mark Hillary talks to Christine Heynes, Head of Customer Transformation, and Yvonne Quinn, Head of Customer Relations, at Southeastern Railway in the UK. Southeastern is the public-facing name of SE Trains Ltd - a train operating company that serves the south east area of England.   Southeastern serves the main London stations of Charing Cross, Waterloo East, Cannon Street, London Bridge, St Pancras, Victoria and Blackfriars. The network has route mileage of 540 miles (870 km), with 180 stations.   Christine and Yvonne explore the complexities of managing customer expectations on a major rail network and how to manage daily complaints and refund demands alongside building a CX strategy for the future.   They also explore the importance of finding the right CX partner. They are happy to talk about their relationship with Teleperformance, a contract that has been extended. It's interesting to note how they see Teleperformance as a CX expert that can guide the rail company, rather just just a supplier of customer service solutions. This collaboration recently won an award (best cross functional collaboration) at the ECCCSAs 2023.   In the interview, Yvonne answers the first question - Christine joins from the second question.   https://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-heynes-40233a104/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/yvonne-quinn-18366a297/ https://www.ecccsa.com/2023-finalists/    

Sidharth Mukherjee is the Chief Digital Officer at Teleperformance. He is based in San Francisco, California.

Sid is focused on all things digital and CX and in this conversation with Peter Ryan he talks about the explosion in interest in Generative AI in 2023 and how it can really be applied to improve the customer experience.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidmuk/

https://www.teleperformance.com