Explore every episode of the podcast Experience Is Everything: The CX Podcast with Jeannie Walters

Should your CX mission statement stay behind the curtain or belong in the hands of the people who actually deliver your customer experience? We tackle a sharp listener question: in a B2B organization with an exclusive customer relationship, can sharing your customer experience mission statement improve alignment, especially when that customer shows up as your retail front line?

We start with what a CX Mission Statement is really for: a universal, aligned internal language that acts as a North Star for decisions and behavior. I explain why strong mission statements avoid corporate jargon, internal acronyms, and empty superlatives like “best” or “greatest,” and why the focus has to move beyond products and services to the real outcomes customers need. Then we dig into the risk of sharing it externally. If the mission is even slightly aspirational, customers can treat it like a promise and hold you to it when you’re not meeting it perfectly.

But partnerships change the equation. When a distributor, channel partner, or exclusive customer is helping deliver the experience, we can’t leave them out. I share a practical way to bring partners into alignment: identify overlapping moments in the journey, translate the mission into clear expectations, and provide “mission moments” that show what the mission looks like in real life. We also connect the dots to B2B buyer trust, where competence matters most and consistency and dependability sit right behind it.

Subscribe, share this with your team, and leave a quick review so more CX leaders can find the show.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

The show has a new name, and it’s the kind of change that brings everything into focus. We’re now Experience Is Everything: The CX Podcast, because “experience” is bigger than a customer touchpoint and more demanding than a quarterly metric. It’s the thread that connects what your customers feel, what your employees carry, what your partners deliver, and what your leaders tolerate.

We talk through what stays the same and what the new name signals: a clearer alignment with the book and the work, and a renewed commitment to a practical customer experience (CX) approach. My mission doesn’t shift one inch: create fewer ruined days for customers. That means giving you the information, resources, tools, and ideas to show up in the best possible way for your customers, your organization, your colleagues, and yourself. Experience management takes the right mindset, a real CX strategy, and the discipline to back it up.

You’ll still find weekly conversations and the CX Pulse Check format, where special co-hosts help us look at what’s happening right now in the world of customer expectations. I also want to hear from you, because your real questions keep this show honest and useful. Send a voicemail or question at askjeannie.vip and it may get answered on a future episode.

If this resonates, subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review so more CX leaders can find the show.

Resources Mentioned:
Sign up for our newsletter -- https://experienceinvestigators.com/newsletter/
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

AI is moving fast into customer service, but customers are pushing back. With 59% saying AI agents feel frustrating, "set it and forget it" automation is not enough.

We break down the AI trust gap, why fast answers do not equal helpful outcomes, and how to hold AI agents to the same standards as human ones: empathy, clarity, and responsible decisions. You will learn why most customers want AI and humans working together, with a clear path to a real person when things get complex.

Walk away with practical steps: mystery shop your own AI agents, test messy real scenarios, and find the moments of truth where trust is won or lost. Subscribe and leave a review to help more CX leaders find this conversation.

Resources Mentioned:
Sign up for our newsletter -- https://experienceinvestigators.com/newsletter/
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Escape rooms have a weird superpower: they make people feel confused, stressed, and slightly panicked and customers still walk out saying it was the best hour of their week. That’s not an accident. It’s a blueprint for intentional friction, where the experience is challenging enough to feel rewarding and supportive enough to stay fair.

We unpack what escape rooms get right about customer experience design, including why most players don’t actually “win” and still recommend it, and why repeated obstacles without help feel less like challenge and more like abandonment.

From there, we connect the dots to everyday product and service design: the IKEA effect and why DIY increases value only when customers can succeed, CrossFit and other coaching models where accountability is the value proposition, and gamification mechanics like streaks that tap loss aversion to improve retention. If you’re doing journey mapping or service blueprinting, you’ll leave with a clearer way to remove unintentional friction while keeping the designed struggle that builds pride, loyalty, and lasting memories.

Subscribe for more customer experience strategy, share this with a teammate who designs journeys, and leave a rating or review so more people can find the show.

Resources Mentioned:
Contact Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com/contact/
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

AI is forcing every customer experience leader to choose: chase efficiency at any cost, or scale service without losing the human heart. Jeannie Walters sits down with Vincent Davis, Chief Customer Officer and SVP of Customer Experience at PG&E, to unpack what it takes to build empathy, accountability, and trust in a world where automation is everywhere and customer patience is thin.

We dig into Chewy's approach to empathy at scale, and why values beat hype in an AI strategy. Customers don't feel your intentions, they feel the experience, especially during outages, service interruptions, and billing issues. We look at crisis readiness through United Airlines' handling of irregular operations, then dig into PG&E's work across digital channels, contact centers, billing, and insights. Vincent explains how an IVR named Peggy boosts containment and satisfaction while freeing agents for higher-impact work. We also cover customer obsession, employee experience, process simplification, and why customers measure every brand against the best they've had, from Amazon to Uber.

If you care about customer experience strategy, AI in the contact center, proactive communication, and building trust when things go wrong, subscribe, share this with a CX leader, and leave a review with your biggest question about empathy and automation.

About Vincent Davis

With more than two decades of experience in the energy industry, Vincent Davis leads with the conviction that customer experience is not one department’s job, but a standard for the entire company.

As Chief Customer Officer at PG&E (https://www.pge.com/), one of the largest customer experience organizations in the utility industry, he leads a team of roughly 2,000 coworkers, overseeing more than $22 billion in annual revenue and a portfolio of programs and products spanning everything from smart meters and billing to digital channels and customer service.

Davis is the driving force behind Customer at the Heart, PG&E’s award-winning initiative that has changed how the company approaches customer experience, with the mantra that the company will build trust by delivering a 10 out of 10 experience in every interaction. He believes customer trust is earned by being present in the communities PG&E serves and ensuring customer voices are reflected in business decisions. Davis’s path to this role has taken him through nearly every part of the customer function, from leading PG&E’s Energy Efficiency Programs group to directing a $1 billion demand-side management portfolio and spearheading an $850 million Advanced Meter Replacement initiative.

Earlier in his career at Duke Energy, he led the Envision Charlotte program, a public-private sustainability partnership recognized by the Clinton Global Initiative.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of South Carolina and an MBA from Queens University of Charlotte. He has executive management certifications from Stanford and UNC Chapel Hill. In 2022, he received the Leadership Excellence Award in Energy at the Energy Inclusion Conference.

Follow Vincent on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincent-davis-6436a01

Articles Mentioned:
- Chewy’s CEO Is Chasing ‘Empathy at Scale’ (Inc) -- https://www.inc.com/stephanie-mehta/chewys-ceo-is-chasing-empathy-at-scale/91358987
- Amazon Connect Customer Brings Live Sync and the Agentic CX Designer to CCW – Here Is Why That Matters (CX Today) -- https://www.cxtoday.com/ai-automation-in-cx/amazon-connect-customer-brings-live-sync-and-the-agentic-cx-designer-to-ccw-here-is-why-that-matters/
- KeyBank modernizes its digital experience with customer relationships front and center (CX Dive) -- https://www.customerexperiencedive.com/news/keybank-modernizes-digital-experience-customer-relationships/823575/

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

You can do great customer experience work and still lose the budget conversation if you walk into leadership meetings with the wrong proof. We’re tired of being asked to defend CX ROI with scores that don’t match the company scorecard, and we’re even more tired of watching smart CX leaders “white knuckle” their way through budget season. This conversation is about changing the starting point so ROI becomes obvious, credible, and repeatable.

We talk through why proving return on investment is so hard when the work begins with tactics and ends with rationalizing the spend. Instead, we start with organizational goals and translate them into what executives already track: more revenue and fewer expenses. We break down how words like scale, growth, market share, and even workplace of choice can become measurable outcomes, and how a simple blueprint helps you identify the leaders who need buy-in, the levers you can pull in the customer journey, and the behavior changes you expect to see.

Then we get practical about customer experience metrics. NPS and CSAT can be helpful feedback indicators, but they’re not enough on their own. We dig into behavioral metrics and analytics that connect CX strategy to business impact, including retention, churn, conversion, friction points, complaint trends, and operational cost to serve. If your goals don’t mention “customer,” we show you how to stop worrying and start proving how customer behavior drives every business result.

If you want more funding, more trust, and a stronger CX business case, listen through and then write down your top organizational goals and start there. Subscribe, share this with a fellow CX leader, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Resources Mentioned:
Article: ​​Want Greater CX Success? Build Your CX Success Blueprint -- https://www.experienceinvestigators.com/how-to-build-cx-success-statement/
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

"We value your feedback.” “Thanks for your patience.” “We apologize for any inconvenience.” Most of us have heard these lines so many times that we can feel our skepticism kick in before the sentence even ends. That reaction isn't cynicism for no reason. It's what customers learn when the message sounds caring but the experience doesn't match the promise.

We get honest about how organizations "fib" to customers without meaning to, from org charts dictating the customer journey to feedback that vanishes with no follow-up. We also tackle the biggest expectation gap of all: overpromising, and why the goal isn't perfection, but believable, honest CX leadership that keeps the promises we choose to make.

Subscribe, leave a rating and review, and share it with a teammate who owns messaging, handoffs, or service promises.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Calling empathy a “soft skill” sounds harmless until you see what it does to your customer experience and your retention numbers. We dig into the uncomfortable pattern where leaders say they want people to feel heard and valued, then invest almost all training time in systems, process, and compliance. The result is predictable: frontline teams feel unsupported in the moments that require judgment and compassion, customers sense the disconnect, and both groups walk away.

From inconsistent experiences that erode brand trust to the steep cost of attrition and lost institutional knowledge, we connect “soft skills” investment directly to business outcomes. If you’re ready to turn customer experience into a winning business strategy, listen now, then subscribe, share this with a leader who owns onboarding, and leave a review with the one “human skill” you want your organization to take seriously.

Looking for more help with CX strategy? Contact Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com/contact/

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Consistency sounds boring until you realize it’s the fastest path to trust and the easiest way to spot what’s broken. In this CX Pulse Check episode, Jeannie Walters is joined by Nick Westergaard, host of the On Brand podcast and author of Brand Now and Get Scrappy, to look at what actually moves the needle in customer experience (CX) and brand building when attention is scarce and expectations are high.

We dig into why major brands point to reliable basics as the key to their turnarounds: better training, smoother checkout, smarter inventory, and fewer “almost good enough” moments. Nick shares a simple mental model for this kind of work: stop chasing one huge “wow” and start raising the floor everywhere. When customers know what to expect, they don’t just come back, they give you more grace when something goes wrong.

Then we zoom in on neuroscience and cognitive load, the hidden force behind friction. Customers live in constant partial attention, and every extra step, confusing choice, or unnecessary question drains their mental energy. We talk about why simplification often beats adding features, how AI customer service earned distrust through bad early experiences, and what it takes to use automation without getting in the way.

We close with brand storytelling and cultural moments, including what we can learn from campaigns that hit at the right time and why even a small change like a Spotify icon can spark big feelings in a deeply personal product. If you want a sharper CX strategy, better customer journey design, and a clearer brand experience, hit play, subscribe, and share this with someone who owns a form, a flow, or a brand decision. If you have a question for the podcast, leave a message at askjeannie.vip.

About Nick Westergaard
Nick Westergaard (https://www.nickwestergaard.com/) is an author, educator, and speaker. He’s spent his career building standout brands at organizations of all sizes—from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies to President Obama’s Jobs Council. Nick teaches at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business, where he leads the Story Lab program. He’s the author of the books Brand Now and Get Scrappy, a contributor to the Harvard Business Review, host of the popular On Brand podcast, and a Moth StorySLAM Champion. An in-demand keynote speaker at conferences throughout the world, his work helps those struggling to stand out in our crowded, distracted world.

Follow Nick on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nickwestergaard
Follow Nick’s Podcast – On Brand - https://www.nickwestergaard.com/on-brand-podcast/
Follow Nick on Instagram - https://instagram.com/nickwestergaard 

Articles Mentioned:
- Why 3 major brands see a consistent experience as key to their turnarounds (CX Dive) -- https://www.customerexperiencedive.com/news/3-major-brands-consistency-key-turnaround-efforts/822944/
- Rethinking CX: The role neuroscience plays in developing the customer experience (Retail Customer Experience) -- https://www.retailcustomerexperience.com/blogs/rethinking-cx-the-role-neuroscience-plays-in-developing-the-customer-experience/
- Every Brand Has a Story to Tell — CMOs Decide How and When to Tell It (Variety) -- https://variety.com/2026/biz/news/walmart-cmo-nfl-spotify-loreal-cannes-lions-variety-1236788926/

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Most leadership advice assumes you already have the mandate, the budget, the buy-in, and the seat at the table. If you lead customer experience, you know that’s often fiction. We’re expected to react to requests from marketing, ops, and whoever our dotted-line boss is this week, then we’re judged on outcomes we didn’t have the power to drive.

Showing up as a customer experience business leader, not just a CX advocate, starts with momentum. When we deliver visible wins that make other leaders’ lives easier, we build authority even without the title. We talk through how to reframe “influence” so it’s not about pleading for support, but about connecting to the moments and priorities that already matter inside the organization.

From there, we get practical with a simple framework of mindset, strategy, and discipline. Mindset means building a CX mission that is a win-win for every leader you partner with. Strategy means improving the world your executives live in, like reducing service calls to increase efficiency or tying journey fixes to retention and revenue. Discipline means stopping the cycle of short-term reporting and instead linking what we do every day to long-term organizational goals.

Measurements are not outcomes. The leaders who get funded become “translator-in-chief,” turning customer insights into clear business outcomes like cost-to-serve reduction, growth, churn prevention, and market advantage. If you’re ready to build momentum without a mandate and use the second half of the year as a reset, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a fellow CX leader, and leave a rating and review so more people can find the show.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

AI is moving fast, but customer trust is moving the other way and that should make every customer experience leader pause. We’ve all seen the rush to deploy chatbots, automate support, and squeeze more efficiency out of service operations. The problem is that customers don’t grade you on “AI adoption.” They grade you on whether they can get the job done, feel respected, and leave the interaction confident they were heard. 

We dig into why so many people say they “hate AI” when what they really hate is a broken experience: circular chatbot loops, unclear paths to resolution, and zero way to reach a human. We also talk about the less obvious wins, like AI that helps customers find answers inside an app, makes shopping easier, or offers proactive guidance at the right moment. When AI is designed around the customer journey, it can earn trust the same way humans do by showing up with the right help at the right time. 

To make this practical, we share three questions you can use this week to evaluate any AI in customer service or generative AI initiative: Is it working for the customer? What should this moment feel like? Can they always reach a human? We also make the case for human-in-the-loop support for nuanced situations and for transparency as a non negotiable trust signal. If you want AI that scales without sacrificing the experience, start here, then subscribe, share this with your team, and leave a review so more CX leaders can find it.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

AI agents are already shopping, comparing, booking, and contacting support for the customers we’ve spent decades trying to understand. That means customer experience is no longer judged only by what a person feels in the moment, it’s also scored by what an AI can find about your brand across policies, pricing, FAQs, reviews, and the broader web. If that idea makes you a little uneasy, good. It’s the wake-up call CX leaders need right now.

I break down what “agentic AI” changes in the customer journey and why it creates a world with no fine print. When an agent can surface your warranty terms, return rules, delivery performance, and reputation signals in seconds, the gaps between your brand promise and real experience become impossible to hide. We talk about the trust signals AI is likely to reward, including transparent pricing, clear and consistent policies, accurate product information, reliable delivery, and responsive customer service. Consistency stops being a nice-to-have and becomes the proof your brand can be trusted.

And we don’t lose the human part. Emotions still drive loyalty because people still make the final decision about who they trust. I share why a clear customer experience mission statement matters more than ever, especially if you’re training internal teams and tools around a defined promise of how you want customers to feel. You’ll leave with practical next steps: experiment with AI like a customer, audit your digital experience, remove hidden friction, and tighten the public signals that shape recommendations.

If an AI agent evaluated your brand today, what would it say about your customer experience? Listen now, then subscribe, share with a CX leader, and leave a review.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

If you’ve ever shouted “just let me talk to a person” at a chatbot, this one’s for you. Jeannie Walters is joined by special cohost Brandon McGovern, Senior Director of Customer Experience at HP, to pressure-test the biggest question in AI customer service right now: how do we automate without breaking trust?

We start with a headline that feels like a warning label. Norse Atlantic Airways offers dirt-cheap tickets, but customers say there’s a catch: customer support is so locked behind tech that getting help can become impossible. We unpack why this isn’t simply a “tech problem,” but a governance and leadership problem. When companies remove phone numbers, skip the escape hatch, and ignore high-emotion journeys like refunds and disruptions, they don’t just frustrate people, they create financial harm and open the door to fraud.

Then we zoom out to the enterprise reality. Cisco’s line that adopting AI is “like surgery without the drugs” is painfully honest, and it frames the messy middle many CX teams are living through. We talk about why rushing to automate tasks can amplify mistakes, how to redesign workflows around outcomes, and why “faster” is the wrong North Star compared to what’s now possible. Along the way, we dig into authenticity, rising customer expectations, and why AI is killing the illusion of fine print as customers use their own tools to read policies and push back.

If you’re leading CX, contact centers, or digital support, you’ll leave with practical guardrails for pilots, measurement, and intent selection. Subscribe, share this with a teammate, and leave a review with the biggest AI question you’re wrestling with right now.

About Brandon McGovern
Senior Director of Customer Experience at HP

Understanding your customers isn't enough. I build the systems that turn that understanding into outcomes.

I’m a Senior Director of Customer Experience at HP, leading enterprise-wide measurement, analytics, and operations that enable the company to understand and act on customer sentiment in real time. I oversee a global Voice of the Customer ecosystem capturing tens of millions of signals annually, translating them into product, service, digital, and brand strategy decisions across the business.

My work has delivered double-digit NPS improvements and material revenue impact by shifting CX from a reporting function to an operational and strategic capability - powered by data, automation, and applied AI.

Beyond enterprise implementation, I build with AI hands-on - personal projects in game design, product prototyping, and workflow automation using Claude, Lovable, and other tools. Building outside my domain teaches me where AI actually breaks down, which makes me a better architect of AI-powered operating models at work.

I bring engineering depth coupled with business leadership (MBA, MS in Electrical Engineering, Stanford executive education), and I specialize in building scalable CX platforms, driving cultural change, and aligning executives around customer-led transformation.

Follow Brandon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonmcgovern/

Articles Mentioned:
- Norse Atlantic Airways Offers Dirt-Cheap Tickets. There’s a Catch (Wired) -- https://www.wired.com/story/norse-airlines-ftc-complaints-ai-scams/
- Cisco exec says adopting AI is like 'surgery without the drugs' (Business Insider) -- https://www.businessinsider.com/cisco-ai-adoption-customer-service-2026-5
- Dissatisfied: Three-fourths of AI customer service rollouts are a letdown (The Register) -- https://www.theregister.com/ai-ml/2026/05/13/ai-customer-service-bots-get-rolled-back-at-74-of-firms/5239800

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Momentum is the thing every CX leader wants and almost nobody hands you. When you’re staring at a 12-month roadmap but drowning in daily requests, it’s easy to feel like you’re working nonstop while nothing actually changes. We built this conversation for that exact moment, and we keep it practical: seven days, one intentional move, and a clear path to visible customer experience impact.

We walk through a simple three-step framework we use with leaders who are trying to turn CX strategy into action. First, we orient before we act by choosing where our energy belongs instead of reacting to whatever is loudest. We talk through a clear set of focus areas and how a quick assessment can highlight the biggest gap between the experience you want to deliver and what’s getting done right now. Then we get real about focus: protecting time, avoiding data rabbit holes, and picking an outcome you can actually ship in a week.

Finally, we make one intentional leadership decision that isn’t driven by urgency or the inbox. That decision might be defining what success looks like, revisiting a customer experience mission statement, or having the buy-in conversation you’ve been avoiding. The goal is not perfection. The goal is momentum you can feel and results you can point to.

If you’re ready to try the seven-day challenge, listen now, share this with a CX peer who feels stuck, and subscribe so you don’t miss what comes next. After you listen, what’s the one move you’ll commit to this week?

Exclusive for podcast listeners: Get your 7-Day Free Trial of CXI Membership

Other Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about the CXI Navigator™ framework -- https://experienceinvestigators.com/our-framework/
Take the CXI Compass™ assessment -- http://CXICompass.com
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

If your CX work keeps getting reduced to dashboards, survey scores, and “please fix this one issue,” it’s time to change how you lead. We respond to a listener who’s using Experience Is Everything with their team and wants the clearest path from customer experience ideas to real execution. The big theme is simple: structure creates credibility, and credibility creates the room you need to drive meaningful change.

We start with the most powerful foundation you can build fast: a CX mission statement. It aligns mindset across the organization, helps you stop acting like a feedback narrator, and gives your team language they can confidently evangelize. From there, we dig into customer experience strategy, because too many organizations never actually write one down. We walk through how to define success in a way that supports organizational goals so your CX work becomes proactive, intentional, and business-led rather than reactive.

Then we get practical about culture and discipline. Culture is hard to change, so we talk about scoring where you are today, choosing one area you can influence, and re-checking progress over time. We also cover the CX charter, the document that turns your foundation into coordinated efforts with the right people involved, a clear communication cadence, and shared measures of success.

Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a rating and review so more CX leaders can find it.

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Burnout doesn’t come from “not being able to handle it.” It happens when CX work becomes an endless stream of urgent requests with no clear priorities. In this episode, we unpack why customer experience leaders burn out trying to solve everything at once, and how a clear CX mission and strategy create the guardrails to prioritize, push back, and lead proactively instead of reactively.

We also explore what strategy looks like in practice: focusing on outcomes that matter most, aligning CX work to business goals, and building small habits that keep you grounded. If you’re not sure where to start, we walk through a simple reset: picture what “wins” you want one year from now, then work backward into practical next steps. And because CX asks a lot of empathy from you, we close with an essential reminder: show yourself the same compassion you expect your teams to show customers, and build small habits that help you stay centered before taking on one more thing.

If this resonates, share it with a CX leader, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next, and leave a rating or review to help more leaders find the show.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

What does customer centricity really look like in fast-growing emerging markets? In this episode, we answer a listener question from a fintech support professional in the Gambia navigating rapid growth, limited resources, and constantly evolving customer expectations. We explore how organizations can build trust at scale by creating a customer-centric culture rooted in leadership, listening systems, and daily operational discipline. We also discuss why frontline support teams are critical in emerging-market fintech, serving as the real-time voice of the customer and a powerful driver of business insight and loyalty.

If this helps you lead customer experience, subscribe, share the episode with a teammate, and leave a rating or review so more CX leaders can find it.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

AI is loud right now, but the real question is quieter: how do we use it to create a better customer experience without losing the human at the center? From the floor of CXPA CX Leaders Advance, Jeannie Walters grabbed a few brilliant minds and asked one simple prompt: What’s the one thing we should be thinking about for the future of CX?

The answers go far beyond any single trend. From evolving skill sets and smarter measurement to human-centered design and change management, this episode brings together a range of perspectives on where CX is heading next.

You’ll hear insights on blending technical and human skills, capturing and acting on customer emotion, grounding strategy in real value, and ensuring teams can actually adopt the changes we design.

If you’re shaping experiences, building journeys, or leading CX transformation, this is a quick hit of perspective to help you focus on what matters most.

Subscribe, share this with a CX leader on your team, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Episode Guests:

Sasha Fard, MBA, CCXP
Director, Omnichannel Analytics, Assurant
Follow Sasha on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sashafard/

Heidi Taylor, PMP, CCXP
Senior Global CX Project Manager, Lenovo
Follow Heidi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidimtaylor/

Emma Winstead, CCXP
Customer Experience Business Partner, Delaware North
Follow Emma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-winstead-ccxp-90b815172/

Nicole Aguilera, CCXP
Business System Consultant III, Mutual of Omaha
Follow Nicole on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicoleaguilera/

Scott Lee Holloway, CCXP
Head of Customer Experience, APS Bank
Follow Scott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottleeholloway/

Lauren Wier
Customer Experience Business Partner, Delaware North
Follow Lauren on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-wier-17448430/

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators -- experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Personalization at scale gets pitched like a switch you flip, but the reality is messier and way more human. From Adobe Summit, Jeannie Walters' sits down with IBM leaders to unpack what it takes to deliver customer experience that feels consistent, connected, and genuinely helpful across digital touchpoints even when different teams, tools, and timelines are involved.

First, Betsy Rohtbart, VP, Digital Experience & IBM.com, shares a simple reframing with big implications: start with the task your visitor is trying to complete, then design the experience to make that “pay off” every time. We talk about why customers often feel the gaps instead of the beautiful moments we intended, how secret shopping your own trial and onboarding flow exposes breakpoints fast, and why chasing problems like a “toddler soccer game” creates more friction. The standard is brutal but fair: customers compare you to their last best experience anywhere.

Then Jay Trestain, EMEA Marketing Transformation Lead & Client Partner, breaks down agentic orchestration in plain terms: AI agents that act as domain experts and work together across an enterprise workflow. We dig into what leaders miss when they rush to deploy AI, how a clear North Star vision sharpens decisions about martech, process redesign, and KPIs, and why agentic technology is changing digital discovery by bypassing traditional web real estate. The punchline: governance is not red tape, it’s the engine for rapid, high-quality decisions that help good pilots scale into real value.

Subscribe for more practical customer experience strategy, share this with a teammate leading transformation, and leave a review.

Follow Betsy Rohtbart on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/betsymorserohtbart/

Follow Jay Trestain on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jay-trestain/

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators -- experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Customer experience can feel complicated fast, especially when you’re working across completely different industries.

In this episode, we answer a listener question about navigating CX in both insurance and luxury retail. Two worlds that seem totally opposite… until you realize the real challenge isn’t the industry—it’s staying clear on who you are to your customers and the experience you’re actually delivering. Because when you lose that clarity, everything starts to feel fragmented.

We break down what customers really need in each space. In insurance, the best experience is often invisible until something goes wrong. That’s when reassurance becomes everything: clear coverage, confidence in what’s been submitted, and knowing progress is happening without having to chase it. In luxury retail, it’s about high-touch, thoughtful personalization that makes customers feel known and valued. Different context, same underlying goal.

And that’s the big takeaway: great customer experience isn’t about the industry, it’s about how well you deliver on your promise. We’ll walk through what actually carries across both worlds: setting the right expectations, giving customers real choice, and using personalization to make them feel seen, heard, and valued.

If you’ve ever felt pulled in too many directions with your CX strategy, this episode will help you refocus on what matters most.

Subscribe, share with a fellow CX leader, and leave a review to help more people find the show.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Customer experience isn’t failing because people don’t care, it fails because teams confuse slogans with systems. Jeannie Walters is joined by Larissa Salazar from Brand Builders Group for a special CX Pulse Check to celebrate the launch of Jeannie’s book, Experience Is Everything: Making Every Moment Count In The Age Of Customer Expectations, and to talk about what it really takes for a message to break through in a noisy world.

We get practical about the shift that changes everything: customer service is reactive, but customer experience must be proactive. If you only show up when something goes wrong, you’re already behind. We talk about designing the end-to-end customer journey with intention, choosing how you want customers to feel, and connecting experience design to the outcomes leaders care about. Along the way, we call out a common trap in CX leadership: treating Net Promoter Score like a strategy instead of a measurement you influence through real changes.

Jeannie also shares the mindset strategy discipline framework from the book, including how a clear customer experience mission statement becomes a usable North Star across teams. Larissa pulls back the curtain on what she sees with experts and first-time authors, why your best knowledge is often the “small steps” you forget to write down, and how templates and frameworks help customer experience change agents take action fast. If you’re trying to operationalize customer-centricity, build a real CX strategy, and move from reactivity to discipline, this conversation is your push to start.

If it helps, subscribe, share this with a change agent on your team, and leave a review so more leaders can find the show.

About Larissa Salazar,
Team Lead & Personal Brand Strategist | Brand Builders Group

Salazar is a highly respected personal brand strategist and speaker at Brand Builders Group, an international personal branding firm and an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing company. As one of the youngest and fastest-rising strategists in the organization, she has quickly built a reputation for helping authors and thought leaders clarify their expertise, define their message, and build brands that create lasting influence.

With a strategic mindset and a deep appreciation for storytelling, Larissa has a unique ability to distill complex ideas into clear, compelling messaging. She doesn’t just help clients communicate their insights—she guides them in developing proprietary intellectual property and signature frameworks that make their teachings memorable, shareable, and scalable. Her approach ensures that thought leaders don’t just teach for the moment, but create content and concepts that spread, endure, and position them as industry authorities.

Follow Larissa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larissa-ann-salazar/
Book a meeting with Larissa: https://freebrandcall.com/ls

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Are you drowning in feedback and still struggling for progress? In this bonus episode, we're bringing you more conversations from the Qualtrics X4 Summit 2026 in Seattle. These conversations tackle the same problem from different angles: how to turn customer and patient feedback into real operational change, and how to protect trust as AI becomes part of the workflow. If you collect surveys, run a CX program, or lead a healthcare team, this one is about what happens after you hit “export.”

First, we talk with leaders from Trillium Health Partners about redesigning their patient experience measurement: Kerry Kuluski, Research Chair in Patient and Family-Centered Care, and Adam Gdyczynski, Senior Corporate Lead, Patient Experience Measurement and Planning. They share how moving from paper and call-center methods to modern digital surveying helped drive an 880% increase in survey responses, plus what they did next to avoid being buried by the volume. We dig into practical tactics like shorter surveys, QR codes on after visit summaries, and using iPads to improve access in areas with lower electronic response rates. We also get into why equitable care depends on knowing who is responding, and how demographic and cultural insights can inform smarter decisions while supporting patient and family centered care.

Then we shift to the trust layer with Qualtrics Chief Security Officer Assaf Keren. We unpack why trust is more than security, why shortcuts create incidents, and why transparency matters when things go wrong. We also get specific about AI governance: third-party risk, building guardrails, managing data access, and keeping a human in the loop when risk is high or confidence is low.

If you want to turn insights into action without losing the human side, listen now. After you finish, subscribe, share this with a teammate, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Follow Kerry Kuluski on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-kuluski-a9791b227/

Follow Adam Gdyczynski on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-gdyczynski-mba-che-83100635/

Follow Assaf Keren on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/assafkeren/

Resources Mentioned:
Qualtrics -- https://www.qualtrics.com/
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

AI is moving fast, but most customer experience programs still get stuck in the same place: teams chase tools, dashboards, and “shiny” promises while the real work and the real problem stay fuzzy. We wanted a grounded conversation about customer experience strategy that actually holds up inside complex organizations, especially when trust, risk, and regulation are part of daily life.

Jeannie Walters is joined by Dr. Elizabeth ErkenBrack, Head of Strategy in the Office of the CEO at Qualtrics. They sat down at the Qualtrics X4 Summit 2026 in Seattle to talk about starting with the outcome you’re trying to achieve, defining who you’re designing for, and mapping the work that needs to change before you ever “plug in” AI. They get specific about where automation helps and where the human touch still matters most, particularly in vulnerable moments like healthcare, financial services, and other deeply personal journeys.

They also dig into the ROI side of experience management: how to shift from CX as a cost center to CX as an investment, how to connect NPS and CSAT to action, and how to tie experience improvements to attributable revenue through churn, retention, conversion, and operational changes. A key takeaway is governance: measurement and execution often sit in different silos, and bringing them into lockstep is an executive decision. If you’re trying to make CX “count” in the C-suite, this gives you language and structure that leaders can align around.

If this helped you rethink how you’re framing your next CX initiative, subscribe, share this episode with a teammate, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Follow Elizabeth ErkenBrack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-erkenbrack-phd-380b5b30/

Resources Mentioned:
Qualtrics -- https://www.qualtrics.com/
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Some of the biggest CX breakthroughs don’t come from bigger budgets, they come from sharper thinking about trust, value, and what people actually feel in the moment. We’re sharing a special Women’s History Month collection of insights from Dr. Amy Climer, Ovetta Sampson, Camille Kremer, Neen James, and Brooke Sellas, each bringing a different lens on customer experience leadership, innovation, and connection.

We start with a future-facing question: when AI shows up on the screens inside our cars, is it there to help the driver or to sell to them? Amy challenges us to treat creativity as “novelty that is valuable,” and to judge value from the customer’s perspective, not the company’s. From there, Ovetta gets candid about generative AI, chatbot hallucinations, and why “set it and forget it” is a fast track to broken customer trust. If you’re building AI into customer support, you’ll hear why rigorous testing and ongoing oversight are now core CX operations.

Camille breaks down expectation setting as the hidden equation behind loyalty: customers invest, brands deliver or don’t, and trust is the outcome. Neen reframes luxury as a mindset where experiences matter more than things, anchored in making people feel seen, heard, and valued. Brooke closes the loop for social media and content marketing: content is the vehicle, emotion is the destination, and connection beats chasing a single “big win.”

If this sparked new ideas for your CX strategy, subscribe, share this with a CX leader on your team, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Experience Action Episodes Mentioned:
CX Pulse Check – February 2025
CX Pulse Check – May 2025
CX Pulse Check – August 2025
CX Pulse Check – September 2025
CX Pulse Check – November 2025

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

A lot of companies say they “listen to the customer” and they do. They survey, they track NPS, they build dashboards, they share reports. But then nothing changes. Today we respond to a sharp question from a listener about what separates organizations that embed customer insights into everyday decision making from those where Voice of the Customer stays stuck as a feedback exercise.

We walk through the mindset shift that turns VoC into real customer experience strategy: using your mission and goals as the lens for what you act on, getting aligned on expectations, and defining a clear customer experience mission statement so improvements aren’t scattered across one-off complaints. When teams fix isolated issues without a unified view of the customer journey, customers feel the inconsistency and trust drops fast.

Then we get practical about execution. Customer insights only matter when they influence decisions across product, operations, communication, and the partners you choose. That requires shared ownership, clear governance, and consistent processes for reporting what you’re doing about the feedback and closing the loop with customers. We also address the “shoot the messenger” trap and how CX leaders can connect the dots to business value so teams understand what’s in it for them.

If you want to turn Voice of the Customer into decision infrastructure and measurable business outcomes, press play. Subscribe, share this with a CX leader on your team, and leave a rating and review so more people can find the show.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Customer experience doesn’t fall apart because people don’t care. It falls apart because the work stays fragmented, the fixes don’t connect across the customer journey, and teams end up stuck in a reactive loop of complaints, escalations, and fire drills. Jeannie Walters shares why she wrote Experience Is Everything: Making Every Moment Count in the Age of Customer Expectations and what she kept seeing after years of working with leaders who genuinely want to do right by customers and employees.

She digs into the real shift that makes customer experience improvement stick: treating CX as a leadership discipline. That means aligning a shared mindset about who we are to customers, building a clear customer experience strategy tied to outcomes, and committing to the discipline that keeps it real day after day. She also read the final page of the book to underline the heart of the message: progress beats perfection. CX gets better when we act, reflect, adjust, and act again, because small intentional decisions compound over time.

She also talks about the pressure of modern work: customers move faster, organizations move faster, and AI is now part of almost everything we design. Without alignment, that speed can accidentally create broken experiences at scale. If you’re the person who notices the gaps, sees the misalignment, and feels a little alone because you care, this is for you. Subscribe, share this with a fellow change agent, and leave a review so more leaders can build better experiences one moment at a time.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

When AI can move faster than your team ever could, the real question isn’t “What can we automate?” It’s “What should represent us?” In this CX Pulse Check episode, Jeannie Walters sits down with Deborah Reuben, CEO of Tomorrow Zone and author of Enter the Tomorrow Zone, to unpack how agentic commerce and automation can elevate customer experience only when purpose leads and tools follow.

They dig into the messy middle of AI adoption—from trust gaps and backlash moments to why innovation driven by shiny features often scales the wrong experience. They share a practical blueprint for leaders under pressure to deliver: define a clear CX mission, align success metrics across teams, and identify the high-stakes moments where humans must stay in the loop.

The conversation also explores how organizations can design AI that signals trust through capability, honesty, predictability, and care. As automation expands and bots increasingly interact with bots, they discuss how measurement must evolve beyond traditional engagement metrics to focus on outcomes like resolution confidence, perceived fairness, and clarity of next steps.

If this sparks ideas for your roadmap or raises thorny questions about where humans should stay in the loop, we want to hear from you. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with your team, and leave a review.

About Deborah Reuben, CLFP
Author | Innovation Strategist | CEO & Founder, TomorrowZone®

Deborah Reuben is an innovation strategist, advisor, and the CEO & Founder of TomorrowZone®. She works with senior leaders across finance and technology to help them navigate complexity, gain clarity, and design future-ready systems.

Her work is grounded in firsthand experience leading and advising complex, large-scale transformation efforts. Deborah is known for helping leaders see patterns they’re too close to notice, and for reframing innovation as a human, systemic practice rather than a technology initiative.

She is the author of Enter the TomorrowZone, which examines why capable leaders get trapped in constant reaction, and how stepping back creates clarity to design what’s next.

Follow Deborah on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Enter the TomorrowZone and Deborah’s work at tomorrowzone.io.
To find out more about the book, visit EnterTheTomorrowZone.com.

Articles Mentioned:
- Own the agentic commerce experience (National Retail Federation) -- https://nrf.com/research/own-the-agentic-commerce-experience
- The 2026 Braze Customer Engagement Review: AI Innovation Meets the Trust Plateau (CMSWire) -- https://www.cmswire.com/the-wire/the-2026-braze-customer-engagement-review-ai-innovation-meets-the-trust-plateau/
- AI Backlash and Public Perception: How AI Strategy Shapes Customer Trust (SupportNinja) -- https://www.supportninja.com/articles/ai-backlash-public-perception-ai-strategy-shapes-customer-trust

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators Website -- experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

You don’t need a big title to drive meaningful customer experience change. This episode shows how real CX leadership starts in the middle by turning customer friction into business outcomes executives can’t ignore. We break down how to connect issues like confusing onboarding or stalled conversions to metrics that matter, including call volume, cost to serve, cancellations, and retention, and how to present that story so leaders say yes.

You’ll learn a practical approach you can use immediately: choose one high-impact friction point, build a simple business case with clear baselines, deliver a focused fix, and share the results. These visible micro wins build momentum, credibility, and influence.

We also cover how to lead across and up by partnering with metric owners, framing ideas around shared goals, and communicating in the language of outcomes. If you’re ready to grow your impact and your career, this conversation gives you the tools to lead without a title.

If you found this valuable, follow the show, leave a quick review, and share it with a teammate ready for their next win.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

The most practical CX breakthroughs are happening in day-to-day choices by leaders who meet their organizations where they are. From the Medallia Experience 2026 conference in Las Vegas, we pull together no-fluff lessons on turning insights into impact, leading with intent, and using AI to accelerate change—without overpromising.

Jeannie talks with Experience Transformation Award winner Paloma Paraja, Customer Experience Manager at Santalucía Seguros, about breaking down silos in a 100-year-old insurer by unifying Voice of Customer, empowering internal champions, and turning feedback into stories teams can act on. She also reconnects with Camille Kremer, Senior Director of Customer Experience at Holiday Inn Club Vacations, for a masterclass in prioritization—using driver modeling and smart experiments to separate noise from real impact, and applying AI to speed service and personalization without eroding trust. Plus, we chat about an Experience Is Everything book club with Deborah Bearden, Enterprise Customer Experience Manager at Simmons Bank.

The theme: progress over perfection. Choose high-impact actions. Test, measure, and scale what works. Let AI amplify a strategy you’ve already defined.

Enjoyed the conversation? Follow the show, share it with a CX friend, and leave a quick review to help more leaders find it. Have a question or story to add? Leave me a voicemail at askjeannie.vip.

Follow our guests on LinkedIn:
Paloma Paraja -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/paloma-paraja/
Camille Kremer -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/camillekremer/
Deborah Bearden -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-bearden/

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Stressed arrivals, missed promises, and long check-in lines aren’t surprises. They’re predictable flashpoints in hospitality. In this episode, we answer a listener’s question about training frontline teams for high-emotion moments and share a practical framework for turning tension into trust without burning out your people.

We start by redefining success. Instead of aiming to “make every guest happy,” we focus on a sustainable goal: guide the guest to a better moment than the one they’re in. From there, we identify the biggest hot spots in the journey and outline how proactive planning, clear recovery thresholds, and consistent standards across properties create a reliable brand experience.

Then we get tactical with language that defuses tension, micro-habits for staying calm under pressure, and playbooks that remove hesitation when speed matters. We also explore empowerment tools like room moves, credits, and late checkout, plus the well-being practices that keep teams strong through demanding shifts.

If you lead a hotel, resort, or any high-contact service, this episode delivers actionable steps to strengthen service recovery, customer experience, and employee resilience.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything --experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators Website -- experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

What if the fastest answer isn’t the right one? We unpack the tension between speed and resolution in customer experience, exploring why AI bots can erode trust when they chase efficiency instead of fixing the real problem. With guest co-host Jennie Lewis of Airship, we dig into pragmatic ways to use AI as an amplifier for empathy.

We also step into hospitality, where automation has raced ahead with mobile keys, kiosks, and virtual front desks. Convenience is great—until an empty lobby at midnight changes how safe a guest feels. From solo travel realities to on-the-ground service design, we discuss how to widen the journey map beyond “check-in to room” and include the edge cases that define trust.

Then we tackle dynamic pricing. There’s a world of difference between rewarding loyalty and playing whack-a-mole with rates. We call out practices that feel predatory, highlight proactive offers that build goodwill, and suggest clear guardrails that prevent sticker shock.

If you care about CX that feels human and scales gracefully, this conversation will sharpen your playbook. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a quick review.

About Jennie Lewis:
Sr Manager, Customer Insights at Airship

Jennie Lewis is a value-focused researcher who transforms complex data into revenue-driving narratives. An expert in quantifying CX ROI, she began as a self-taught coder automating emails for GM before leading agency teams that supported iconic brands like Marriott, Chase, and Marvel. She bridges the gap between technical data and business strategy, managing a portfolio of research results that achieve increased influenced revenue. Certified by Northwestern, eCornell, and Google, Jennie is a recognized thought leader and mentor dedicated to proving that great customer experience is a measurable driver of growth.

Follow Jennie on...
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennie-lewis/

Articles Mentioned:
- Customer service AI bots not ready for prime time, survey suggests (Consumer Affairs)
- Ireckonu- 2025 year in review: What had happenend in the hospitality technology industry? (Breaking Travel News)
- Asda’s unhappy shoppers give boss food for thought (The Times)

Resources Mentioned:
Women In CX Community
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything
Experience Investigators Website

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

What if the fastest way to beat your competitors isn’t a new feature, but a better feeling at every step of the journey? In this episode, we explore how experiential innovation—improving how customers move, decide, and feel—outperforms price wars, builds trust, and turns small moments into big wins.

Using the CXI Navigator, we break down how leaders align clear intent, cultural commitment, and real customer behavior to reduce friction and increase reassurance. From Uber and Netflix to B2B organizations like Vanguard, the pattern is consistent: spot hesitation, simplify paths, and guide people forward with confidence.

With data showing customers will abandon even beloved brands after a single bad experience, the stakes are clear. This conversation shares practical ways to design calmer, clearer journeys that drive loyalty, speed, and long-term growth. Subscribe for more practical experience strategies, share this with a teammate who owns a part of the customer journey, and leave a review.

Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- CXIMembership.com
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators Website -- experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Ever feel like your journey map leaves teams on the sidelines? In this episode, we explore a practical way to make customer journey mapping more inclusive without losing the customer’s voice. We reframe journey mapping as a verb—one that engages cross-functional partners, incorporates frontline insight, and is grounded in customer data—while keeping the focus on real customer moments like triggers, actions, emotions, and outcomes (not org chart debates).

From there, we introduce service blueprinting as the execution layer that turns insight into action. You’ll hear how blueprinting clarifies what happens front stage and backstage, and how people, processes, systems, and tools support—or hinder—the experience you’re trying to deliver.

Along the way, we share practical tips for building alignment and shared ownership: inviting stakeholders who felt left out, defining goals that cut across teams, and tying internal decisions to customer outcomes. We also discuss the constraints and gaps that surface when teams blueprint together, plus the kinds of measurable improvements you can expect. Whether you’re refreshing an existing map or pairing it with your first blueprint, this conversation offers grounded guidance for creating clarity, momentum, and more connected CX work.

Have a question you want us to tackle next? Leave it at askjeannie.vip, explore more tools inside our CXI Membership, and pre‑order Experience Is Everything to deepen your practice. If this conversation helped, follow the show, share it with a teammate, and leave a quick review to support the community.

Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Customer​​ Service Blueprinting [LinkedIn Learning Course] -- https://bit.ly/lilblueprint
Customer Experience: Journey Mapping [LinkedIn Learning Course] -- https://bit.ly/liljourneymap
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

B2B relationships are rarely simple. Behind every account are buyers, end users, operators, and executives—each with different goals, pressures, and definitions of success. In this episode, we unpack how to design for roles, not just accounts, and how to anchor decisions to a shared definition of success everyone agrees on up front.

We walk through a practical approach to role-based journey mapping, showing how to surface friction, clarify what success looks like for each role, and navigate competing priorities without politics. You’ll hear how to spot misaligned incentives, rebalance when one team bears the cost while another captures the value, and use a clear North Star to make smarter trade-offs. We also get tactical on role-based communication—what executives, buyers, end users, and operators actually need to hear—and why your most important job is acting as a translator between metrics, outcomes, and real business impact.

If you’re juggling competing priorities inside complex B2B relationships, this conversation gives you a repeatable framework for alignment, decision-making, and momentum.

Resources Mentioned:
Take the CXI Compass® assessment -- CXICompass.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- CXIMembership.com
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators Website -- experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Losing a customer hurts—but missing what their exit can teach you hurts more. In this episode, we unpack a two-phase offboarding feedback strategy that captures the truth twice: immediately after churn and again once customers have settled with a new provider. You’ll learn how to ask hard questions without defensiveness, why timing changes insight quality, and how to turn churn into actionable CX signals.

We cover the exact questions that surface breaking points, broken promises, and hidden process gaps—then show how to translate those patterns into leadership language around risk, speed, and results. Plus, why AI can support workflows but can’t replace trust, adoption, or accountability.

If you’re ready to move from CX heroics to consistent, scalable experience design, this conversation gives you the framing, timing, and questions to start.

Please subscribe, share with a teammate, and leave a review to help other CX leaders find the show. 

Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Start the year with clarity instead of clutter. We’re sharing five decisive questions that help you cut noise, design automation that still feels human, and align your customer experience strategy with outcomes your executives and your customers actually care about. If AI, tight budgets, and shaky trust are pulling you in every direction, this conversation gives you a practical way to choose what matters and let the rest go.

We dig into where value is truly created across your journey and where activity masquerades as progress. You’ll learn how to build a balance between fast, scalable automation and the empathy customers crave when stakes are high. We talk through using a CX mission and a success blueprint to connect initiatives to revenue, retention, cost to serve, and risk reduction—without resorting to vanity metrics. Along the way, we share how to craft human-centered stories that move leaders, and how to build guardrails so AI augments your team instead of eroding trust.

Customer expectations have shifted, so your insights need to as well. We outline practical methods for refreshing journey maps with real behavior, analytics, and interviews, and we show how co-creating with customers accelerates clarity. Finally, we turn the mission from a poster into an operating system: a tool for prioritizing roadmaps, guiding trade-offs, and running quick post-launch reviews that keep experience quality high. Call this the year of intention—simplify, align, and keep showing up with respect and consistency.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a teammate who’s buried in dashboards, and leave a quick review to tell us which question you’ll tackle first. Your feedback helps more leaders find the tools to build trust and deliver results.

Resources Mentioned:
CX Mission Statement Workbook -- https://bit.ly/cx-mission-workbook
CX Success Statement Workbook -- https://bit.ly/cx-success-workbook
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Clicking “buy now” shouldn’t feel like shouting into the void. In this episode, we explore how digital retail can feel more human by pairing smart personalization with trust-building micromoments. Instead of proving what we know, we focus on what customers need next: clear fit guidance, delivery transparency, and friction-removing policies that build confidence before checkout.

We share practical moves you can use this week—from confirmations that speak to the shopper (not the order number) to shipping updates in plain language, short stylist videos, and behind-the-scenes warehouse moments. We also cover how to use chat well: being upfront about bots, designing warm handoffs to humans, and giving AI a role that feels helpful, not blocking.

Reassurance is the real conversion multiplier. We talk about sizing honesty, responsible return signals, clear expectations on duties and timelines, and how to keep the warmth going after checkout. The simple test we return to again and again: would this message feel kind and useful if you sent it to a friend?

If these ideas help, subscribe for more customer experience strategies, share this episode with your team, and leave a quick review so others can find us. Your feedback shapes what we explore next.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

What if customer experience stopped living in customer service and started living in the core of your business? We tackle a listener’s challenge and turn it into a practical playbook: define a shared mindset, build a success blueprint tied to revenue and cost, and practice the daily discipline that makes change stick. Along the way, we share the one-line definition leaders can use to rally teams: customer experience is the system we build to deliver on the promises we make.

We start by stripping away the fuzziness around CX. Instead of ten different definitions across the company, we push you to craft a clear CX mission statement that guides choices in sales, product, marketing, operations, and HR. From there, we elevate CX from reactive troubleshooting to proactive design—fixing upstream processes that create downstream tickets, refunds, and churn. The message to skeptics is grounded and simple: fewer service issues, lower cost-to-serve, stronger retention, and more referrals.

Then we map CX to executive priorities with a customer experience success blueprint. We talk through how to align with the CFO’s bottom line, show the CMO how advocacy can lower paid media spend, and help product and operations choose fixes that move the needle. You’ll hear how to translate friction into financial levers, set a tight measurement set that includes outcome, perception, and behavior metrics, and build governance that runs like any other business function. Finally, we offer storytelling tips to earn buy-in, celebrate small wins, and keep momentum through the long, non–light switch journey of change.

If this resonates, share it with a colleague who still thinks CX is a department. Subscribe for more practical plays, leave a quick review to help others find the show, and send us your questions—your challenges fuel the next conversation.

Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators Website -- experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

The most dangerous number in customer experience isn’t low—it’s shiny. In this CX Pulse Check, we unpack why a single score can seduce teams into storytelling that investors love and customers don’t feel, and we make a case for the harder, more honest work of proving value creation by cohort, not by kudos. With Rob Markey of Bain & Company and Harvard Business School, we discuss whether customer metrics predict growth or distract from it, and we separate real loyalty from repeat purchase.

We go straight at the NPS debate: what the score can predict, where it fails, and how it becomes powerful only as part of a system that links feedback to actions that change renewal, cross-sell, referrals, and cost-to-serve. We talk airlines, captive markets, and the language games behind “loyalty” programs that purchase repetition without building emotional commitment. Then we get practical. You’ll hear a little about how to read interaction telemetry for risk signals, and build models that translate service performance—wait times, abandon rates, repeat contacts—into forward revenue forecasts your CFO will respect.

This is a great listen for leaders who want both heart and proof: real-time feedback to understand emotion and expectation shifts, behavioral data to see what customers actually do, and investor-ready visuals like tenure curves and revenue per customer by acquisition year. If you’ve ever wondered how to tell a CX story that earns budget because it earns returns, tune in to this conversation.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with your team, and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Then send in a question you want us to tackle next at askJeannie.vip.

About Rob Markey
Advisory Partner, Bain & Company
Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School

Rob Markey (https://robmarkey.com) is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School and an advisory partner at Bain & Company. The creator of the Net Promoter System, he has spent more than three decades helping companies grow by earning customer loyalty and increasing the value of their customer relationships.

He teaches Managing Service Operations in the MBA program at HBS and hosts the Customer Confidential podcast, where he speaks with leaders building customer-centric businesses.

He is the co-author of The Ultimate Question 2.0 and a leading voice in the movement toward Customer Capitalism.

Follow Rob on...
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robmarkey/


Articles Mentioned:
- The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI): Quarter 3, 2025 - A Threat Potentially More Damaging Than the Great Recession (American Customer Satisfaction Index) -- https://theacsi.org/news-and-resources/press-releases/2025/11/13/press-release-national-acsi-q3-2025/
- CoStar (CSGP) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript (The Motley Fool) -- https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2025/10/28/costar-csgp-q3-2025-earnings-call-transcript/

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

What if the next 90–180 days could lock in measurable customer loyalty? In this episode, we break down a practical, no-fluff playbook for building a retention strategy that customers actually value—whether you’re serving consumers or complex B2B accounts.

We focus on intentional success and segmentation, identifying high-value customers and the signals that predict renewal, frequency, and advocacy. Then we narrow in on the KPIs that matter most and design loyalty mechanics that make sense: points, tiers, access, bonuses, and earned surprise moments. You’ll learn why swag rarely drives loyalty, how to reduce early friction with smart onboarding, and where re-engagement triggers fit when momentum slows.

We compare B2C and B2B loyalty without clichés. For B2C, convenience, delight, and timely nudges win. For B2B, loyalty must support the whole account through shared benefits like premium support, admin training, success reviews, and milestone-based usage credits. Throughout, we lean on behavioral analytics, automation that enhances relevance, and a communication cadence that drives action without fatigue.

To keep programs fresh, we champion co-creation and experiential innovation—inviting customers into pilots, iterating on perks, and retiring low-impact rewards fast. Ask the Disruption Day question: what will customers need tomorrow, and how can you start building it today? This mindset turns loyalty from a cost center into a growth engine. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a teammate, and leave a quick review.

Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

When surveys fall flat, the real story still lives in customer conversations, behaviors, and signals. In this episode, we explore how to move from survey programs to real feedback strategies—ones that capture those signals, connect them to outcomes, and drive action leaders can feel.

You’ll hear how to combine quick, purposeful interviews, observational studies, and analytics for a full picture of what customers think, feel, and do. We also unpack where AI fits in—how NLP, speech analytics, and social listening reveal patterns at scale, while humans still guide the questions and actions.

From frontline insights to early warnings of silent churn, we cover practical ways to detect issues, act fast, and close the loop. You’ll leave with five essentials for building a connected feedback ecosystem and turning listening into lasting improvement.

Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Want customers to talk about your brand without being asked? In this CX Pulse Check, we bring on Brooke Sellas, founder of B Squared Media and a leader in social customer care, to unpack how emotion—not content volume—creates durable connection, retention, and revenue. Together we push past vanity metrics and dig into signals that actually matter: the unsolicited thank-yous, the screenshots, the stitches, and the small moments of care customers can’t help but share.

Our conversation moves from principle to practice. We map out how to define success for customers and for the business, then build joy loops that reward participation and make advocacy feel like a feature. We talk candidly about creator care—how high-velocity social teams face relentless expectations and why, in the age of AI, creative risk is the differentiator. We also look inside modern support: when bots deflect FAQs, humans inherit the complex, emotional problems.

We also break down Salesforce’s decision to replace a lightly used help search with AI and the community backlash that followed. The lesson is clear: internal metrics don’t equal external sentiment. Listening publicly, restoring a dedicated search capability, and co-creating with power users can turn friction into fuel.

If you care about customer experience, social strategy, or contact center leadership, you’ll leave with insights for measuring emotion, protecting the people who power your brand, and taking smart risks that cut through AI’s sea of sameness.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a teammate, and leave a quick review.

About Brooke Sellas:
Brooke Sellas is shaping the future of digital marketing one conversation at a time. As an award-winning CEO, she leads B Squared Media, a boutique agency redefining 'social care' for brands like Brother International, Miele, and BCU. You can dive into her insights through her book Conversations That Connect, her thought leadership on CMSWire, or her expert-led courses—among them, three digital marketing courses at the University of California, Irvine (one focused on AI & Marketing) and a LinkedIn Learning course on Social Care.

Learn More About B Squared Media at https://bsquared.media/

Follow Brooke on...
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookebsellas/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HelloBSquared/podcasts


Articles Mentioned:
- To Set Your Brand Apart, Create Moments of Shareable Joy (Harvard Business Review) -- https://hbr.org/2025/09/to-set-your-brand-apart-create-moments-of-shareable-joy
- Duolingo’s Departing Social Media Manager Talks Virality, Anxiety and Mental Health (The Wall Street Journal) -- https://www.wsj.com/articles/duolingos-departing-social-media-manager-talks-virality-anxiety-and-mental-health-63d36f40
- Salesforce Responds to User Backlash Over Replacing Help Search with Agentforce (CX Today) -- https://www.cxtoday.com/crm/salesforce-responds-to-user-backlash-over-replacing-help-search-with-agentforce/

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Personalization in B2B shouldn’t feel invasive—it should feel helpful, timely, and trustworthy. In this episode, we share a practical framework for getting personal the right way: focus on professional goals, public signals, and clear boundaries. Skip the birthday messages and small talk; instead, pay attention to milestones that matter—team expansions, product launches, and regulatory shifts that shape your clients’ priorities.

We dive into tactics for adding warmth to cold communications, from simple follow-ups to plain-language summaries that turn compliance into clarity. You’ll learn how to time outreach, tailor messages by maturity level, and link value to outcomes leaders care about—adoption, risk reduction, and ROI.

Finally, we explore the guardrails that protect trust: respect boundaries, avoid private data, and apply the “leadership test” for tone. Rethink your B2B playbook and build personalization that scales—with relevance, respect, and humanity.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a teammate, and leave a quick review so others can find it.

Don’t forget to register for our upcoming webinar, From Assessment to Action: Building Your CX Roadmap, on November 4th via bit.ly/CXAction

Resources Mentioned:
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

In this episode, we explore one of the toughest CX challenges: balancing company policies with the flexibility needed to deliver exceptional experiences.

Policies should guide and protect, not block great service. We share how to design rules that empower teams, use exceptions as insights for improvement, and align every decision with your customer experience mission. Plus, we discuss how rethinking outdated policies — like libraries eliminating overdue fines — can strengthen trust and deepen customer relationships.

Tune in to learn how to turn rigid rules into opportunities for better customer experiences — and don’t forget to register for our upcoming webinar, From Assessment to Action: Building Your CX Roadmap, on November 4th via bit.ly/CXAction.

Resources Mentioned:
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Why do leaders hesitate to green-light customer interviews even when everyone agrees they matter? In this episode, we share a fast path to buy-in: lead with business outcomes, start with a small pilot, and turn qualitative insights into measurable ROI. Instead of pitching interviews as an activity, we frame them as a strategic move to reduce churn, fix onboarding friction, and prioritize work that grows loyalty and revenue.

Most importantly, we show how to speak leadership’s language — tying interviews to metrics like time-to-value, adoption, cancellations, and expansion revenue — and how to keep executives engaged with quick updates and short video clips that make customer emotion impossible to ignore. Clear ask, clear scope, clear outcomes. Then scale once the foundation is in place.

Liked what you heard? Subscribe, share with a teammate who needs a pilot plan, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Got a question for a future episode? Leave a voicemail at askjeannie.vip.

Resources Mentioned:
Get our Customer Interview Guidebook -- bit.ly/ciguidebook
Experience Investigators Website -- experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Customers don’t just want answers. They want action! That’s why agentic AI, the kind that doesn’t just recommend but actually does the work, is reshaping how teams analyze experiences, resolve issues, and connect systems.

In this CX Pulse Check, Jeannie talks with Medallia’s Chief Strategy Officer, Sid Banerjee, about today’s clearest CX use cases and the pitfalls leaders should avoid as agentic AI adoption accelerates across industries like banking, healthcare, retail, and hospitality.

We explore three big patterns:

• AI that speeds up insight generation across calls, chats, and surveys
• Assistive tools that help agents find and deliver answers in real time
• Orchestration that lets AI schedule, submit, and update without piling on handoffs

Voice is making a comeback too, from car dealerships booking recall appointments to restaurants taking phone orders with flawless recall. The key isn’t “more bots,” but better design, continuous coaching, and a balance of speed with trust.

We also cover empathy, accountability, and practical guardrails (like building feedback loops, retraining models, and giving customers clear choices so they never feel trapped by tech).
If you’re evaluating where to deploy AI next or whether your pilots are effective, this conversation provides examples, cautions, and a pragmatic perspective.


About Sid Banerjee, Chief Strategy Officer, Medallia:
Over a nearly 30-year career, Sid has amassed deep skills building companies and solutions based on customer experience, business intelligence, and AI-powered technologies. Sid was the Founder and served as CEO, Chairman, and Chief Strategy Officer at Clarabridge. He most recently served as Chief XM Strategy Officer at Qualtrics. He presently serves as Chairman at Prolific, a high-growth technology company that provides a platform for high-quality, human-derived AI and research models. He was a founding employee of MicroStrategy and founder/CEO of Claraview. He also held executive and management positions at Ernst & Young and Sprint. He holds a BS/MS in Electrical Engineering from MIT.

Learn More About Medallia at https://www.medallia.com/

Follow Sid on...
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidbanerjeewdc/


Articles Mentioned:
- Marriott checks out AI agents amid technology transformation (CIO Dive) -- https://www.ciodive.com/news/marriott-international-AI-strategy-agentic-cloud-cybersecurity/758922/
- Red Lobster Turns to AI to Power Phone Ordering (Hospitality Technology) -- https://hospitalitytech.com/news-briefs/2025-09-22?article=red-lobster-turns-ai-power-phone-ordering
- Long Island pizzeria goes viral with saucy videos giving bad diners a taste of their own medicine: ‘Go sit down’ (New York Post) -- https://nypost.com/2025/09/22/us-news/long-island-pizzeria-goes-viral-with-saucy-videos-giving-bad-diners-a-taste-of-their-own-medicine-go-sit-down/

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Complacency can creep into even the strongest B2B partnerships. This episode shares practical ways to keep long-term relationships fresh, valuable, and resilient—without changing your core product. From proactive reviews and co-created thought leadership to milestone moments and small human gestures, you’ll learn how to spark momentum your clients can feel and measure.

We also explore a “Disruptor Day” exercise to out-innovate yourself, reduce friction, and design micro-surprises that remind clients they’re seen and valued. Through the lenses of goals, fears, and energy, you’ll see how to turn satisfaction into advocacy.

Press play to protect key accounts and strengthen partnerships—and don’t forget to subscribe, share with your team, and leave a review with one change you’ll try this quarter.

Resources Mentioned:
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Where do you start with customer experience strategy?

As a CX leader, you’ve probably faced the overwhelming question: Where do I start? In this episode, Jeannie Walters explores this challenge and shares how to find clarity when building a customer experience strategy.

Drawing from real conversations with CX leaders, Jeannie introduces the CXI Navigator Framework, which highlights four essential parts of an effective strategy:

• Intentional Success – Defining what success really looks like.
• Customer Collaboration – Listening to and engaging with customers meaningfully.
• Cultural Commitment – Building a culture where everyone plays a role in CX.
• Experiential Innovation – Looking ahead to disrupt and improve through the customer experience.

You’ll also hear how the CXI Compass can help you pinpoint where to begin, whether it’s strengthening culture, refreshing a Voice of the Customer program, or sparking innovation.

If you’ve ever struggled to know the right starting point, this episode offers practical guidance to help you prioritize, define success, and create momentum in your customer experience journey.

Resources Mentioned:
Take the CXI Compass® assessment -- https://CXICompass.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Navigating today’s uncertain business landscape means balancing what’s behind us with what’s ahead. In this episode, we explore how CX leaders can use leading indicators to predict satisfaction while relying on lagging metrics to evaluate performance.

Rather than collecting more data, it’s about collecting the right data—spotting early signals in engagement patterns, service inquiries, and employee feedback before they show up in CSAT or NPS. We also look beyond internal data to market trends, competitor activity, and global behavior shifts to understand evolving customer expectations.

As technology—and customer access to AI—advances, the information gap is shrinking. CX leaders must rethink how they deliver value in this new reality. By blending historical insights with forward-looking indicators, we can move from reporting what happened to shaping what happens next.

What signals are you watching for in your business?

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

What does luxury really mean in today's experience economy? The answer might surprise you.

Joining us on this eye-opening CX Pulse Check episode is luxury experience expert Neen James, who shares groundbreaking research revealing that luxury isn't about price tags—it's a mindset with four distinct profiles. Yet regardless of which luxury mindset we embody, we all agree on five essential characteristics: high quality, long-lasting, authentic, unique, and indulgent.

"You don't have to have a luxury product to provide a luxury level of service," Neen explains, unlocking possibilities for businesses across every industry and price point. Her research definitively proves what many have suspected: luxury is increasingly about experiences rather than possessions, and about feeling genuinely seen, heard, and valued.

We explore fascinating real-world applications, from wealthy travelers choosing cooking lessons with Italian grandmothers over five-star hotels to Louis Vuitton's theatrical ship-shaped flagship store in China.

Perhaps most applicable for everyday business is our discussion of Starbucks' ambitious four-minute service goal. As Neen advises, we must "think like a concierge, not a bellhop," transforming transactional relationships into meaningful connections through what she calls "systemized thoughtfulness."

The insights from this conversation apply whether you're running a coffee shop or a luxury retailer.

Don't miss Neen's upcoming book, Exceptional Experiences, launching October 14th with pre-orders available now.

About Neen James:
Neen James (neenjames.com) is a leadership strategist, dynamic keynote speaker, and the author of Folding Time, Attention Pays, and the upcoming Exceptional Experiences. With boundless energy, quick wit, and actionable insights, she serves as a confidante to C-suite leaders to help them elevate experiences and achieve greater focus, communication, and influence. Recently appointed to the board of the World Luxury Chamber of Commerce, James has been named one of the Top 30 Leadership Speakers by Global Gurus multiple years in a row for her work with some of the world’s most prestigious brands, including Viacom, Comcast, Virtuoso Travel, Four Seasons, and the FBI. She empowers individuals to prioritize what matters most so they can create exceptional experiences that drive results and foster lasting connections. Originally from Australia, James is living her best life in Tampa, Florida.

Follow Neen on...
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/neenjames/
Instagram: instagram.com/neenjames
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AussieNeen

Articles Mentioned:
Luxury Travelers Prefer Spending Thousands on Authentic Nonna's Kitchen Over Lavish Hotel Suites (Investopedia)
A luxury experience in China: Global high-end brands bet on conceptual stores to revive sales (Reuters)
Brian Niccol wants your Starbucks drink to be made within 4 minutes of ordering (Yahoo! Finance)

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