Customerland

mike giambattista
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Customerland is a podcast about …. Customers. How to get more of them. How to keep them. What makes them tick. We talk to the experts, the technologies and occasionally, actual people – you know, customers – to find out what they’re all about.So if you’re a CX pro, a loyalty marketer, a brand owner, an agency planner … if you’re a CRM & personalization geek, if you’re a customer service / CSAT / NPS nerd – you finally have a home.

  1. From Workflow To Blueprint: How Pega Reimagines Processes

    2 DAYS AGO

    From Workflow To Blueprint: How Pega Reimagines Processes

    What if AI could design your business in minutes—and still pass audit? We sit down with Pega CEO Alan Trefler to unpack how Blueprint uses generative AI to reimagine complex processes while preserving the predictability enterprises demand. Instead of asking models to improvise outcomes at run time, Blueprint captures objectives, proposes stages and data flows, and feeds a best-in-class workflow and decisioning engine that’s built for change. We get into the core challenge every leader faces: turning AI hype into production reality. Alan breaks down three kinds of AI that matter in the enterprise—statistical next best action, generative features that assist workers, and generative process design that rethinks how the business should run. The twist is timing. Let the model be expansive at design time, then lock the logic, policies, and decision frameworks before go-live. That keeps outcomes consistent, explainable, and ready for regulators and auditors. You’ll hear how this approach reshapes sales and consulting. With just a few inputs and a client’s website, a first meeting can produce a tailored blueprint that feels shockingly complete. Consulting partners can now embed their proprietary IP via partner-branded blueprints, marrying their best practices with Pega’s runtime to deliver four to five times faster. We also cover trust guardrails—data isolation, no training on client data, transparency into decisions—and why predictable AI will separate pilots that stall from systems that scale. If you’re evaluating AI for process transformation, customer engagement, or operational excellence, this conversation will give you a practical framework for choosing the right AI for the right job—and a playbook for moving from idea to production with confidence. Subscribe, share with a colleague who owns transformation, and leave a review with the one process you’d redesign first.

    38 min
  2. The New Rules Of Subscriber Loyalty

    3 MAR

    The New Rules Of Subscriber Loyalty

    Want proof that churn isn’t the end of the story? We sit down with Recurly’s Chief Product Officer, Priya Lakshminarayanan, to explore how pause states, micro subscriptions, and one‑click plan changes are rewriting the rules of subscriber loyalty. Drawing on network‑wide data from millions of users, Priya explains why nearly one in four new subscriptions comes from a former customer and how 75% of paused users eventually return when brands make exits humane and re‑entry effortless. We dig into the rise of micro subscriptions—short passes that replace bloated free trials—and why they convert around 13% of users into ongoing plans. From there, we map the journey that grows revenue: compress time to value in the first 90 days, use context‑aware prompts to surface upgrades when benefits are felt, and lean on annual plans that generate 50–60% more revenue than monthly without sacrificing trust. Priya shows how Recurly’s engagement tools turn helpful nudges into one‑click actions tied directly to billing, so a downgrade, pause, or tailored discount happens in the moment a user needs relief, not days later. We also tackle the loyalty stack that matters now: transparent billing, excellent support, and a sharper focus on data privacy that’s moved to the forefront of subscriber decisions. Flexibility to pause or switch plans emerges as a true customer‑first signal, while ethical and sustainable practices vary in weight by vertical and demographic. Finally, Priya previews an AI retention agent designed to detect churn type in real time, select the right save tactic within budget, and keep growth on autopilot. If you care about retention, ARPU, and building real trust, this conversation offers practical, data‑backed steps you can put to work today. Listen, share with a teammate who owns subscriptions, and leave a quick review to tell us which tactic you’ll test first.

    36 min
  3. Designing Trustworthy AI For Real Customers

    11 FEB

    Designing Trustworthy AI For Real Customers

    Customers don’t churn all at once—they leave through a thousand small cuts. We sit down with Katie Costanzo, President of CX at CSG, to unpack how leading brands are closing those gaps with real-time decisioning, smarter use of billing and journey data, and disciplined deployment of agentic AI. If clarity, empathy, and credibility feel scarce in your customer experience, this conversation offers a practical reset and an action plan. Katie breaks down what CSG Xponent actually does across the journey, from onboarding to service, billing, and support. We explore how billing intelligence can predict confusion, trigger proactive help, and even offer tailored payment plans that preserve trust. Instead of blasting more messages, we talk about cutting the noise by timing communications to intent and choosing the right channel for action. The result: fewer dead ends, fewer escalations, and a measurable lift in customer loyalty. We also dive into the tension around agentic AI. With 56% of consumers still wary of letting AI act on their behalf, how do you unlock the efficiency without losing hearts and minds? Katie’s take: onboard AI like an employee. Define responsibilities, set guardrails, build transparent governance, and always provide human on-ramps. Start small, solve specific pains, prove value, and scale. As switching costs approach zero, brands that move at the speed of experience—decisions in milliseconds, improvements in weeks—will win the market. If you’re a CX, product, or operations leader looking to turn data into trust and trust into growth, this episode is your field guide. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review to tell us which micro friction you’ll fix first.

    33 min
  4. Building A Resilient Career While AI Rewrites The Rules

    3 FEB

    Building A Resilient Career While AI Rewrites The Rules

    What if the antidote to career burnout isn’t a new job, but a new structure? We sit down with Ruth Stevens - B2B marketing veteran, educator, and globe-trotting “academic tourist” - to unpack how a portfolio career can turn chaotic consulting into a resilient, joyful life. Ruth walks us through the system she built: teaching that provides rhythm and community, paid writing and research that monetize curiosity, and board work that expands perspective and credibility. Each lane feeds the others, creating a flywheel where ideas sharpen and opportunities compound. Then we pivot into the AI frontier with clear eyes. We talk about using large language models as thought partners rather than ghostwriters, why unedited outputs are risky in classrooms and courtrooms, and how brand voice can erode when teams lean on generic prose. We dig into the tough questions: who owns the data, what do energy-hungry data centers mean for communities, and can policymakers keep pace with deepfakes and model misuse? You’ll hear a chilling simulation anecdote that illustrates why safety work and governance matter - and how product teams can test, monitor, and document AI responsibly. It’s not all doom. We spotlight hopeful applications like accessible productivity tools and low-cost therapeutic support, and we outline a practical approach: automate drudgery, keep humans on judgment and narrative, and build lightweight guardrails before regulation lands. If you’re a solo practitioner, marketer, or leader trying to navigate AI while designing a career you actually want, this conversation offers a map and a push. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a reset, and tell us: which part of Ruth’s playbook will you try first?

    35 min
  5. Your Average Shopper Doesn’t Exist

    26 JAN

    Your Average Shopper Doesn’t Exist

    Shoppers aren’t average anymore—and our stores shouldn’t be either. We dig into why treating each location as a living ecosystem beats blanket strategies, especially when consumer signals are split between cautious and confident spending. With Justine Melman, CMO at Optimum Retailing, we explore how connected data and AI-powered planograms turn messy, stressful environments into calm, intuitive spaces that invite discovery and drive conversion. Across the conversation, we unpack the tension between shopper stress and in-store enjoyment, revealing why cluttered shelves and noisy signage push people away while clear wayfinding and focused merchandising pull them in. We talk through the rise of impulse purchases as a form of self-care, and how retailers can enable those moments without overwhelming the senses. Justine shares how localized insights—traffic patterns, heatmaps, weather, and nearby events—feed dynamic planograms that adapt assortments, facings, and features to each store’s real shoppers, not theoretical personas. You’ll hear concrete examples, including a telco that used Realogram to generate automated, store-specific planograms and saw up to a 17% lift in sales—proof that dynamic beats static when executed at scale. We also tackle the category gap: grocery and health are resilient, while apparel, electronics, and restaurants fight for discretionary dollars. The unlock is emotional relevance. By framing “nonessential” items through practicality and personal impact, brands can turn nice-to-have into must-have in ways that feel authentic and local. If you’re a retail leader ready to replace averages with precision, this is your playbook: use data to sense, AI to decide, and simple design to soothe. Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a review with one change you’ll make to localize your stores this quarter.

    30 min
  6. Coaching AI, Leading Humans

    20 JAN

    Coaching AI, Leading Humans

    Forget churning out more content; the real advantage now is coaching intelligent systems to deliver work that still feels unmistakably human. We sit down with Johann Wrede, CMO of UserTesting, to unpack why the modern marketing leader must operate like a business generalist, not a channel specialist—and how AI raises the floor on execution while threatening to flatten differentiation. Johann traces an unconventional path from engineering to sales to marketing to the C-suite, revealing why integrated thinking beats siloed teams and how curiosity has been the throughline in every step. We dig into the shift from outputs to outcomes, the growing responsibility CMOs have across finance, talent, and culture, and the practical ways to build teams that prompt for critique, pressure-test assumptions, and use AI as a typist and analyst while protecting the origin of ideas. The conversation gets tactical: how to detect and avoid “common denominator” content, when to bet on in-person experiences to earn authentic digital lift, and why brand voice matters even more when a bot handles the first touch. Johan shares lessons from UserTesting customers who test tone, empathy, and clarity before deploying AI into apps and contact centers, aiming for helpful, on-brand interactions without pretending the machine is human. If you’re rethinking your marketing operating model—designing briefs for agents, calibrating prompts for better judgment, and building tight research loops with real people—this one maps the path. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a teammate who’s retooling their workflow, and leave a quick review telling us how you’re coaching AI for better outcomes.

    44 min
  7. Trust, Agents, And The Future Of Work

    14 JAN

    Trust, Agents, And The Future Of Work

    The excitement around agentic AI is loud, but the real story starts where hype meets accountability. We sit down with Eric Karofsky, CEO of Vector HX, to separate narrow task agents from agentic systems that plan, reason, and negotiate across steps—and to ask the uncomfortable question: who do you trust when your agent starts talking to someone else’s agent? Eric walks us through the gaps leaders often miss. It’s easy to mandate AI from the top; it’s harder to redesign the workflows that make measurable impact. We explore why trust breaks down when autonomy spreads across tools, teams, and vendors, how hallucinations become career risk inside enterprises, and what guardrails look like in regulated sectors. The conversation stays grounded with two practical wins. First, a pharma literature review pipeline that shrinks from six months and $250,000 to roughly two weeks by structuring extractions, adding human checks where accuracy matters most, and instrumenting the process end to end. Second, a document discovery platform that stitches together siloed repositories with smart metadata, natural language search, and relationship mapping that surfaces parent, child, sibling, and multilingual versions of critical procedures. If you’re wondering where to start, Eric’s advice is simple and hard: map the jobs to be done, pick a high-friction workflow with measurable outcomes, and redesign it around human needs. Save broad agentic autonomy for bounded domains with clear policies, identity, and audit trails. The best KPI for the next 12 months might be whether your core processes actually change; if you’re doing the same work the same way next year, you probably missed the point. Ready to rethink your approach to AI beyond better emails? Listen now, subscribe for new episodes, and share this with a teammate who owns process change. Your take: where would agentic AI actually earn trust in your organization?

    31 min
  8. Sensorized Stores, Smarter Retail

    6 JAN

    Sensorized Stores, Smarter Retail

    The future of retail isn’t just about shiny tech on the sales floor; it’s about the unseen engine that makes every experience feel effortless. With Verizon Business’s Katie Riddle, we unpack how sensorized products, unified IoT platforms, and edge AI are transforming inventory accuracy, employee workflows, and the shopper journey—while forcing retailers to rethink bandwidth, security, and the true cost of scale. We start with the ground game: real‑time visibility. As RFID and low‑cost sensors spread through stores and DCs, managers can spot low stock, recover misplaced items, and treat shelves with the same precision we expect from ecommerce analytics. Katie shares how Verizon’s ThingSpace creates a single pane of glass for devices and environments—HVAC, refrigeration, digital shelf labels, and more—turning disconnected data into actions that cut waste and improve availability. Then we zoom out to the network layer. Smaller formats benefit from fixed wireless access, larger boxes lean on private 5G, and everyone needs fast, reliable Wi‑Fi. That mix matters because AI tools and retail media networks are hungry. Natural‑language search for associates, computer vision for measurement, and privacy‑safe attention analytics all demand low‑latency compute at the edge. Katie explains how to separate mission‑critical systems from media traffic, prove in‑store ad lift with 5G Video Insights using existing cameras, and fund the initiatives that actually move the brand forward. None of this works without robust security and a plan that outpaces growth. Every new endpoint expands the attack surface, so zero trust, segmentation, and managed detection become table stakes. Sustainability rounds out the story: sensors that prevent spoilage, energy‑smart operations, and circular programs that align with how customers want to buy. The takeaway is clear—technology is your brand now. Overbuild the right way, measure what matters, and protect the experience end to end. If this conversation helped you see what’s next, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review so more retail leaders can find it.

    32 min
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About

Customerland is a podcast about …. Customers. How to get more of them. How to keep them. What makes them tick. We talk to the experts, the technologies and occasionally, actual people – you know, customers – to find out what they’re all about.So if you’re a CX pro, a loyalty marketer, a brand owner, an agency planner … if you’re a CRM & personalization geek, if you’re a customer service / CSAT / NPS nerd – you finally have a home.

Information

  • Creator
    mike giambattista
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    155
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Customerland
  • Show Website
    Customerland