At the point where we go live with this podcast, it’s National Customer Service Week in the UK.

On MyCustomer.com, to coincide with NCSW week, we’re publishing and broadcasting an array of content that’s looking at the future of customer service in a little more detail, and challenging the status quo.

It could be argued that nothing challenges the status quo more than the gig economy, and in this episode of Connecting the Dots we speak with Megan Neale, COO of Limitless - a platform that connects businesses up to people who want to ‘gig’ in the customer service sector.

We discuss:

- The trends that led to Megan and her co-founders launching a gig platform for customer service. 
- What the benefits of 'GigCX' are for both business and prospective giggers.
- What the challenges are of launching a gigging platform in the service sector and how Megan and Limitless respond to some of the more negative accusations that are thrown at the gig economy.
- How 'employees' are selected to gig via Limitless and the traits and skills required from those that work for it.
- What the future holds for gigging both in customer service and why recent acquisitions in the tech space (Facebook/ Customer, Slack/ Salesforce) highlight the need for new models and innovation in digital customer service.

We also discuss how COVID has impacted the service sector and the potential for GigCX to become more widespread as a result of the mass migration to working from home we’ve seen in the last 18 months or so.

Is the gig economy the future of customer service?

In July 2021, author, customer experience strategy director and behavioural scientist Jen Clinehens posted a video to her YouTube channel titled '10 ways Peloton used psychology to make exercise addictive' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8AwPABozxw&t=134s]. 

The video is a fascinating insight into the behavioural science concepts and tricks Peloton leans on in designing an experience that encourages addiction in its users, as well as focusing on the value of designing addictive experiences and questioning whether designing an addictive experience is always fundamentally a negative action. 

Addiction is of course a complex and serious topic and fundamentally the idea of addiction is not one to take lightly. However, in this podcast we speak with Jen to address the idea that brands are actively ‘designing’ addictive experiences, what addictive experiences actually are, whether there are pros as well as cons to an addictive experience. We also discuss:

- Why Peloton is an example of a brand that blurs the lines between a positive and negative addictive experience
- If Netflix, Amazon, Facebook and other megatech companies are arguably examples of the opposite 
- If addictive experiences differ from 'dark patterns' created by brands such as Netflix and Amazon
- Why ‘ethical habit loops’ are a vital part of creating experiences that are addictive, but for the benefit of the user rather than the detriment.

We also discuss whether there are positive, ethical ways CX and service leaders can design experiences that encourage habitual, repetitive actions in their customers.

Peloton and the addictive experience dilemma

In November 2021, Sri Safitri fought off competition from over 150 fellow customer experience professionals around the globe to be voted the MyCustomer.com CX Leader of the Year 2022. 

Her success comes after numerous years climbing the ladder in marketing, customer service and customer experience roles in Indonesia and across Asia, before heading up CX and leading a vast digital transformation drive for Telkom Indonesia, a company with over 250m customers.

What has Sri learned during her time in the customer experience profession? And what made her stand out as the leading CX professional across the globe in 2021? In this enlightening and insightful podcast, guest hosts and CX Leader of the Year judges Adrian Swinscoe (author of Punk CX and Punk XL) and Clare Muscutt (founder of Women in CX) talk with Sri to discover:

- Why CX Leader of the Year recognition has given her the confidence that Telkom Indonesia is on the right track with its plans to be a customer experience leading brand in Asia.
- What barriers have stood in her way as a woman in business during her ascent to being a senior leader in a major organisation. 
- Why she has adopted a 'fire and forget' approach to CX leadership.
- Why she believes the future of customer experience and customer service management is about having the skillset to better understand customer data.
- Why the greatest lesson she has learned from inspirational leaders in her career is the importance of being predictable for fellow team members.
- Why striking the right balance of 'fear and love' is at the heart of creating a motivated and engaged CX team.

For more details on Sri Safitri and her CX Leader of the Year 2021 award visit: https://www.mycustomer.com/hub/cx-leader-of-the-year-2021

For details on Adrian Swinscoe's latest book, Punk XL, visit: 
https://www.adrianswinscoe.com/books/ 

For details on Clare Muscutt's Women in CX community, visit:
https://womenincx.community/

CX leadership and the importance of predictability

We speak with Adi Tobias, the head of customer experience strategy and operations SSA for Uber.

Adi is passionate about CX and discusses how her role is all about being able to move fast and react and respond.

She also explains how she balances the expectations of two sets of customer – the Uber users and the Uber drivers, as well as highlighting why it’s important customer experience professionals are able to get outside of strategic thinking and into the act of being a company’s customer.

"Every single experience that’s outside of what the customer expects has the potential to either escalate or leave a customer with a not so pleasant memory of that interaction.” - Adi Tobias, Uber

Mastering CX in action: Uber's Head of CX Strategy & Ops

We speak with Close Brothers' global head of customer experience, Andrew Clayton. 

Andrew has been in a number of senior CX roles previously, including at Eon, Bupa and Allianz. 

In this podcast we discussed his thoughts on the commonalitites and differences of managing CX in several different sectors - and why so many CX leaders move jobs so frequently. 

"Clearly a big big challenge for many organizations at the moment is how we blend the human experience, human contact together with the digitalization of many businesses, and how you make sure that is seamless and interconnected, end to end.”

Cross-sector CX insights: Close Brothers' Head of CX

We speak with Asda's senior director of customer experience,  Manuela Pifani.

Manuela has led CX at some of the UK’s largest organisations, including Direct Line, Kingfisher and RBS. 

In this discussion we examined how her current role at Asda differs from that in other sectors, why customer insight and listening plays such an influencial role in informing Asda’s business strategy, and why CX at the supermarket chain is a relatively new concept. 

“In retail, you touch the products, you use the products, you eat the products, you return the products, and therefore all of that really creates an always-on customer experience that obviously needs to be managed with CX.”

Navigating retail excellence: Asda's Senior Director of CX

In the latest episode of MyC'd Up, we speak with Nick Macfarlane, head of customer experience optimisation for emerging markets at Cazoo. Nick has worked in senior CX roles in numerous different markets over the years, from Spain, to Germany to the UK. And in this interview, he discusses whether the principles of good CX remain the same, no matter the country or culture, or whether customer experience leaders need to take a more nuanced approach.

Leadership across cultures: Cazoo's Head of CX Optimisation

In episode 5 of MYC'D UP with CX Leaders, we speak with Craig Antonucci, the chief experience officer of Autocar Trucks.

Autocar is North America’s oldest surviving truck and vehicle brand. Craig oversees CX for the manufacturer and is an engaging storyteller; speaking clearly and fluently about the importance of customer experience in an organisation such as Autocar Trucks, which is fairly unique in that it continues to build and manufacturer all of its own vehicles out of plants in Birmingham, Alabama where it’s headquartered, and Hagerstown, Indiana.

Among other things, in this podcast chat we talked about what a typical Autocar customer looks like, how Craig is able to help in the process of keeping customers satisfied, and how he’s able to engage with employees on customer experience across a business where many don’t necessary have direct contact with customers.

Driving CX excellence: Autocar Trucks' CXO

In episode 6 of MYC'D UP with CX Leaders, we speak with Avis Easteal, the head of consumer for Luxasia.

Luxasia is a fascinating brand and Avis is a fascinating podcast guest, hailing as she does from the UK and having headed up a number of initiatives for insurance brands in the UK prior to the leap to customer experience, insight and marketing via her head of consumer role for a completely different type of business in Luxasia in a completely different region – being as it is an ecommerce platform for primarily beauty brands across Asia.   

In this podcast, Avis discusses her career path, what a Luxasia customer typically looks like, why customer experience is an irrelevance without good marketing, why working in retail in Asia is more interesting than in other regions, the role of social media and innovations such as live shopping in making Asian retail and ecommerce such an innovative sector to be in, and why she sees herself as an ‘accidental’ customer experience leader.

Embracing retail-tainment: Luxasia’s Head of Consumer

In the latest instalment of MYC'D UP with Tech Leaders, we speak with Cristina Fonseca, VP of Product at Zendesk.

Before arriving at Zendesk, Cristina was already something of an AI expert – having previously founded and run two successful AI-focused companies. 

With a strong background and passion for customer service alongside her expertise in the AI field, Cristina is perfectly placed to provide insights and wisdom on the hottest topic in the CX sector.

Drawing upon her considerable experience and success in both the AI and customer service arenas, Cristina provides detailed analysis of precisely how to get the best out of your AI programmes – including what you should and should not be automating, how to build trust in your AI offerings, and how AI could be the key to lowering agent turnover rates.

"When we think about automating CX inquiries, the first task of AI for me, is understanding what should and should not be automated."

AI-powered customer experience: Zendesk’s VP of Product

In the latest instalment of MYC'D UP with Tech Leaders, Sabine Groven speaks with Léonie Watson, Director at Tetralogical.

Improving CX through digital accessibility: TetraLogical’s Director

A podcast connecting the dots between CX, marketing and customer service. MyCustomer.com offers news, advice, events and resources to customer-facing professionals around the globe.

AI-powered customer experience: Zendesk’s VP of Product

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