The Experience Edge

Jochem van der Veer

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Hosted by Jochem van der Veer, customer-obsessed founder of TheyDo, this weekly podcast dives into conversations with senior professionals, pioneers, and industry leaders at the forefront of CX. Guests openly share their experiences on customer journeys, voice of the customer, customer-centric transformation, journey management, and best practices for lasting impact.

6 DAYS AGO

Ep. 61 - Why executives nod at journey management - and then do nothing

Why executives nod at journey management - and then do nothing Leaders rarely push back on customer centricity - it sounds sensible, even obvious - yet that agreement is often exactly where journey management quietly stalls. In this Insights video, Jochem reflects on why the issue isn’t resistance but misunderstanding: journey management is still framed as a belief or a set of maps, when in reality it represents an operating model shift that changes prioritisation, coordination, ownership, and metrics. The moment those implications become clear, the nodding stops, and that gap between agreement and impact is where most journey work dies. By reframing journey management as a coordination system rather than a CX deliverable, this reflection shows why a single pitch never works - and why connecting the language to what different leaders actually care about is the only way to move from concept to practice. In this video: Why customer centricity is easy to agree with but hard to operationalise How journey management shifts decision-making, not just documentation Why functional leaders and P&L owners need fundamentally different translations How journey management reduces chaos for teams - and reveals growth constraints for the business What “executive empathy” really means when pitching customer journeys If journey management keeps getting polite agreement but little traction, what are leaders actually hearing when you explain it? Follow Jochem on LinkedIn Learn more about Journey Management with TheyDo:https://www.theydo.com

10 min
28 JAN

Ep. 60 - The Storytelling Skill Business Leaders Underestimate - Suchitra Parikh

Suchi Parikh is a creative director and storyteller with a rare blend of design craft and business fluency. After a decade at Apple leading global sales content, she now serves as Director of Storytelling at PayPal, where she helps bring complex product innovation to life across agent commerce, Venmo, and global payments. Her work sits at the intersection of empathy, clarity, and persuasion - translating complexity into stories that move people to act. In this conversation with TheyDo’s Jochem van der Veer, Suchi unpacks why every presentation is an act of persuasion, how teams unintentionally dump complexity on their audience, and what it really takes to transform someone from awareness to action. Together, they explore practical frameworks for simplifying stories, designing for emotional shifts in customer journeys, and building trust through intentional storytelling. Guest Bio Suchi Parikh is a creative leader and Director of Storytelling at PayPal, where she shapes how product innovation is communicated across global payments and commerce experiences. Previously, she spent over 10 years at Apple as a Group Creative Director, leading global sales content and executive storytelling. With a background in animation, design, and business, Suchi specializes in helping organizations clarify their thinking, reduce cognitive load, and communicate ideas with conviction. She is known for bridging creative storytelling with strategic business outcomes, and for mentoring teams to become more confident, intentional storytellers. Key Takeaways Every presentation is an act of persuasion, even routine business updates.Complexity is the storyteller’s responsibility, not the audience’s burden.Great business stories start with one clear intention, often anchored in a single word.Emotional state matters as much as functional clarity in customer journeys.Trust is built through simplicity, sequencing, and empathy, not more information. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and background 01:32 From design to business storytelling at Apple 04:28 Why business presentations fail despite good data 07:13 Every presentation as an act of persuasion 09:56 A simple structure for clearer business stories 12:58 Removing cognitive load and the one-word anchor 19:50 Why having a point of view matters 25:10 Audience Context Transformation (ACT) framework 28:50 Emotional states in everyday customer journeys 35:30 Operationalizing storytelling in large organizations 40:24 Why energy matters more than logic 44:10 Practicing storytelling in safe environments 47:25 The role of a Director of Storytelling 48:56 Rules, frameworks, and when to break them 50:55 Learning from unexpected great storytellers LinkedIn Profiles Guest - Suchi Parikh Host - Jochem 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇 𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎𝐒: • Why Journey Management Is Really Organizat... • Why Collapsing CX Into Customer Service Br... • Organizing CX around what matters. - Angel... • Reflections 6 Why CX teams may be erasin... 𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐒𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊: https://www.theydo.com/podcasts/subsc... / @theexperienceedgepodcast Thank You For Watching

54 min
21 JAN

Ep.59 -Why CX team might be erasing the moments customers remember - Reflections 6

What if removing friction is ruining your customer experience? Everyone in CX wants to make things effortless. Fast. Smooth. Seamless. But in this Reflections episode, Jochem explores a provocative idea from his conversation with Sam Stern (Service Design Lead at LinkedIn): not all friction is bad - some friction creates memory, meaning, and better decisions. We unpack the difference between good friction and bad friction, with real examples from LinkedIn, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, IKEA, nightclubs, and Todd Unger’s work at the AMA. The goal isn’t to eliminate all effort - it’s to design effort where it matters most. In this video: Why some friction helps customers think clearly and choose better How friction creates emotional contrast and memorable moments When organizational drag ruins customer experience The 4 types of customer journeys and how friction plays a role How to tell if your friction serves the customer - or your org Follow Jochem on LinkedIn: @jochemvanderveer Learn more about Journey Management with TheyDo:https://www.theydo.com #CustomerExperience #FrictionDesign #JourneyManagement #CXStrategy #ExperienceDesign #ServiceDesign #DecisionMaking #EmotionalDesign #OrganizationalDrag #MemoryDesign #CustomerCentricity #BehavioralDesign #ExperienceArchitecture #SamStern #TheyDo

14 min
14 JAN

Ep. 58 - Why Journey Management Is Really Organizational Design - Reflections 5

Are journey maps just artifacts or operating systems in disguise? In this episode, Jochem reflects on his conversation with Dan Sullivan, Director of Journey Management at CHG Healthcare, to explore how journey management becomes true organizational design. Dan's team didn’t just improve customer journeys - they restructured how decisions get made across teams. From building a “Journey Atlas” as a shared schema, to using immersive experiences to rewire executive thinking, their work signals a deeper shift: journey management isn’t about prettier maps. It’s about embedding customer thinking into the operating model. In this video: Why journey management = organizational design How CSG created a decision-making nervous system The role of schema, structure, and centralized governance What 500 people experienced inside the “journey museum” Signs your journey maps are shaping strategy—not just workshops Follow Jochem on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jochemvanderveer Learn more about Journey Management with TheyDo: https://www.theydo.com

10 min
7 JAN

Ep. 57 - CX is not a department - Charissa Riddle EA

Charissa Riddle, Senior Director of Experience Design and Customer Experience Strategy and former EA executive, brings over two decades of experience spanning Electronic Arts, PayPal, and eBay. Known for operating at the intersection of design, operations, and strategy, Charissa has led global teams serving tens of millions of customers and players, tackling challenges like toxic behavior, self-service at scale, and embedding customer insight into decision-making. In this conversation with TheyDo’s Jochem van der Veer, Charissa reframes customer experience as a system rather than a department. They explore why CX loses power when it becomes too broad, how experience should be defined through actionable containers, and why stewardship of customer truth is the one responsibility CX leaders should never give away. Together, they unpack how governance, storytelling, and decision-making rituals determine whether CX drives real business impact or remains a reporting function. Guest Bio Charissa Riddle is a senior experience design and customer experience strategy leader with more than 20 years of experience across gaming, fintech, and marketplaces. Formerly at Electronic Arts, PayPal, and eBay, she has led global teams focused on experience design, service strategy, and operational transformation at scale. Charissa is known for her systems-level thinking, her ability to align cross-functional stakeholders, and her focus on turning customer insight into measurable business outcomes. Key Takeaways Customer experience loses effectiveness when it is defined too broadly and without clear ownership or scope.CX works best as a system that connects interactions, emotions, and business outcomes across teams.Experiences should be defined in clear containers with entry points, exit points, and measurable impact.Metrics should be built from the experience outward, not imposed top-down as abstract efficiency measures.Stewardship of customer truth, journeys, and decision-making governance is a non-negotiable CX responsibility.Chapters 00:00 Introduction and framing CX beyond customer service 03:30 Why CX originated in service and why that still matters 06:16 CX as a mindset, function, or system 08:22 Defining experience as interactions that create emotion 11:32 Connecting emotion, loyalty, and business outcomes 18:06 Why CX definitions fail when they get too big 21:15 Accountability, containers, and governance 25:12 Making journeys tangible for leaders 29:30 Storytelling that drives decisions 31:47 Building a journey atlas at scale 35:36 Moving from metric-driven to experience-driven measurement 40:10 Centralization vs studio autonomy 44:47 Business goals vs customer-led change 46:04 Decision-making rituals and CX influence 51:48 Cross-functional focus and the toxicity example 57:59 What CX leaders should never give away LinkedIn Profiles Charissa Riddle Jochem van der Veer

1h 2m
17/12/2025

Ep. 56 - Design that sticks - Martha Cotton

Martha Cotton, Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase, brings 25 years of experience bridging anthropology, design, and enterprise transformation. Known for helping large organizations understand people, navigate change, and design for adoption, Martha shares how empathy, collaboration, and partnership shape modern design leadership. In this episode, she and Jochem explore how designers can speak the language of business, why data partnerships matter, and what it really takes to drive customer centricity inside legacy organizations. They examine the future of journey management, organizational transformation, and how AI will reshape creative work. Guest Bio Martha Cotton is Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase, where she leads design research and drives customer centricity across one of the world’s largest financial institutions. With a background in cultural anthropology, she has built a career spanning boutique studios, global consultancies, and enterprise design leadership. Her work focuses on designing for adoption, shaping change inside complex organizations, and elevating design as a strategic partner to the business. Martha is also an educator and long-standing contributor to the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry community. Takeaways Designing for adoption ensures experiences deliver sustained customer and business value.Design leaders must articulate impact in business terms, not just craft terms.Organizational change succeeds when it’s driven top down, bottom up, and radiating from the middle.Strong partnerships between design and data unlock measurable outcomes and credibility.Journey management becomes transformative when supported by diverse data and cross-functional collaboration.Chapters 00:00 Setup and warm up 02:27 Intro to Martha Cotton 03:44 Martha’s career through line 05:46 Why empathy still matters in business 08:17 Skills needed to thrive in complex enterprises 12:04 Craft, business impact, and designing for adoption 14:42 How design leadership is evolving 16:37 The rise and pitfalls of design thinking 19:58 Making new ways of working stick 22:11 Breaking the glass ceiling for design 25:23 Moving from order taking to partnership 28:53 Charm offensive and influencing without disruption 30:57 Learning business context the hard way 32:40 Early days of digital transformation 33:45 Making transformation stick in enterprises 35:04 Top down, bottom up, and middle-out change 39:32 The challenge of creating opportunities inside enterprises 44:00 Design and data partnerships 47:26 The evolution of journey management 49:29 Data-enabled journeys and organizational reality 54:41 What Martha wishes she could change 55:47 Thinking about AI as a creative partner 58:29 Where to find Martha LinkedIn Guest: Martha Cotton Host Jochem van der Veer

58 min
10/12/2025

Ep. 55 - The Three Metrics Every CX Team Needs to Prove ROI - Jochem van der Veer

Most CX teams struggle to show ROI because they’re looking in the wrong place. CX isn’t just one metric and it was never meant to be. As Jochem van der Veer explains, leaders don’t fund sentiment… they fund outcomes. In this episode, Jochem breaks down the three ROI lenses every mature CX organization uses to quantify impact across the business: customer outcomes, operational efficiency, and strategic influence, and how they work together to reveal the full-stack value of customer experience. If you want CX to be taken seriously, stop defending it with dashboards and start showing how the system behaves differently because of the way you work. What You’ll Learn How to measure and prove CX impact through three enterprise-wide signals:Customer Outcomes. How reduced churn, faster time-to-value, and increased cross-sell/upsell probabilities drive revenue growthOperational Efficiency. How fixing upstream friction cuts avoidable support volume, eliminates duplication of work, and reduces delay-driven wasteStrategic Influence. How journey alignment accelerates prioritization, decision-making, and cross-functional clarityYou’ll walk away with a practical, system-level view of CX ROI that product, finance, and executive teams actually believe.KEYWORDS business value of customer experience, customer experience ROI, CX strategy, customer retention, brand loyalty, experience management, CX metrics, customer insights, customer journey, customer feedback, business strategy, ROI, CX leadership, CX design, simon sinek, user experience, customer satisfaction, business growth, value proposition, customer service, customer relationships, marketing strategy Watch next: Bill’s full conversation on The Experience Edge podcast (link below). • Experience starts with the CFO – Bill Staikos Subscribe for more on journey management, CX strategy, and operationalizing customer-centricity at scale. Like, comment, and share with your team if you’re ready to move from dashboards to boardrooms. CONNECT WITH US: Website: https://www.theydo.com/ LinkedIn: https://theydo-journey-management Twitter: https://x.com/TheyDoHQ

14 min
03/12/2025

Ep. 54 - What LinkedIn learned about designing memorable journeys - Sam Stern

Sam Stern, Service Design Lead at LinkedIn and longtime CX thinker, joins TheyDo’s Jochem van der Veer to explore how journeys, data, and behavioral science shape memorable experiences. With a background spanning Forrester, New Balance, and his own CX Patterns podcast, Sam reveals why perfection is overrated and why some friction, when engineered well, can actually deepen customer value. They dig into good friction, employee experience design, cross-silo collaboration, and how AI is reshaping research workflows. Sam challenges long held CX doctrines, offering a fresh lens on how to create experiences that customers remember and teams can deliver with confidence. Guest Bio Sam Stern is the Service Design Lead at LinkedIn, where he focuses on improving the employee and customer facing experiences that power the platform’s global ecosystem. Before LinkedIn, Sam spent nearly 16 years as a Principal Analyst at Forrester, shaping industry thinking on customer experience. He has also led CX at New Balance and is the creator of the CX Patterns podcast and newsletter. Sam is known for blending behavioral science, service design, and practical business insight to help organizations craft experiences that matter. Key Takeaways Good friction can enhance memorability when intentionally designed, contrasted with the CX habit of removing all friction.Behavioral science principles like anticipation, contrast, and peak moments remain underused in customer experience design.Service design at LinkedIn prioritizes improving the employee experience for 12,000+ customer facing roles to strengthen customer outcomes.Journey readouts become dramatically more effective when grounded in video evidence from real users.AI accelerates research workflows but amplifies, rather than replaces, human judgment and context setting.Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Sam Stern 02:00 Why another CX book 05:00 The concept of good friction 08:30 When friction helps and when it harms 12:00 Ethical considerations in engineered friction 16:00 How service design operates inside LinkedIn 21:00 Secrets to effective journey readouts 24:00 Helping product teams see beyond their scope 26:45 How prioritization works across product and CX 29:00 Journey atlas and cross org context 32:00 Blending CX, UX, and service design roles 35:00 Business impact and full stack builder 39:00 AI’s role in research and insight development 43:00 Can AI ever understand context 49:00 The future of service design and CX 58:00 Why silos aren’t going away 59:00 Where to find Sam LinkedIn Follow Sam Stern: Post on Good Friction Post on Book announcement Follow Jochem van der Veer:

1h 3m

Hosted by Jochem van der Veer, customer-obsessed founder of TheyDo, this weekly podcast dives into conversations with senior professionals, pioneers, and industry leaders at the forefront of CX. Guests openly share their experiences on customer journeys, voice of the customer, customer-centric transformation, journey management, and best practices for lasting impact.

Creator

Jochem van der Veer
Years Active

2024 - 2026
Episodes

69
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© Jochem van der Veer
Show Website

The Experience Edge