Doing Customer eXperience Right‬ In The AI Era | Stacy Sherman

Doing CX Right ℠

The Doing CX Right Podcast is a resource for businesses striving to increase revenue, reduce costs, and achieve sustainable competitive differentiation. Companies often pursue these goals ineffectively. This podcast challenges conventional thinking through innovative customer experience (CX) strategies. Each episode offers expert advice, blending human-centric approaches with the latest technology to solve business challenges. The show emphasizes that everyone has a CX role, regardless of job title or function, and provides actionable tactics for a unified effort. Beyond business strategies, you'll hear inspiring life lessons and personal triumphs, transforming organizations by capturing customer hearts and wallets. This approach results in a win-win-win: delighted customers, empowered employees, and a thriving business.

  1. 215. How to Orchestrate Better Customer Experiences with Agentic AI | Pierre Charchaflian

    1d ago

    215. How to Orchestrate Better Customer Experiences with Agentic AI | Pierre Charchaflian

    Most leaders think they are delivering a great customer experience. Pierre Charchaflian of IBM says they are delivering yesterday's version. The new standard is not fixing problems when customers report them. It is knowing about the problem before the customer does, and solving it before they have to ask. That shift, from reactive to anticipatory, is what separates the brands that customers stay loyal to from those they leave without explanation. The technology to do it exists right now. Most companies are not using it. Pierre has spent 25 years at the intersection of data, technology, and customer experience, and he says this transformation is unlike anything he has seen before. The window to act is open. It will not stay that way. What You Will Learn About Anticipating Customer Needs With AI: What agentic AI actually is in plain language, why it is fundamentally different from prior AI capabilities, and what it means for your CX strategy starting now Why IBM's research found that technology stack limitations, not budget or talent, are the number one barrier preventing CMOs from delivering the customer experience they already know they need to deliver How agentic search engines are becoming a direct threat to brand digital presence, and what leaders need to do before their customers' AI agents start bypassing them entirely Why anticipating a customer's need before they express it is now a measurable competitive advantage, and what separates the companies building that capability from the ones still reacting How AI can read sentiment, detect frustration signals across structured and unstructured data, and trigger a response before a customer decides to leave Why conversion is the metric that tells the truth about whether your customer experience is actually working, and what NPS and CSAT consistently miss Download IBM's Win the Moment report now: https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/en-us/report/customer-intent?utm_id=Stacy-Sherman-AdobeSummit-LinkedIn-IBVCMOStudy-04-16-26 #IBMPartner Have a question or thoughts to share? Leave a voice message: https://www.speakpipe.com/StacySherman Learn more at DoingCXRight.com and subscribe to the newsletter for more actionable strategies.

    27 min
  2. 214. How To Make Every Employee Accountable For Customer Loyalty | Chris Morrissey

    Jun 2

    214. How To Make Every Employee Accountable For Customer Loyalty | Chris Morrissey

    Your contact center agents are not the only people responsible for your customer experience. Every person in your company who touches a product, a process, or a decision is shaping how your customer feels about your brand, whether they realize it or not. Chris Morrissey, General Manager of Customer Experience at Zoom, calls this horizontal CX, and it starts with one question every leader should be asking every employee, every quarter: how did you use what you learned from customers to make a better decision? When that question becomes routine, "not my job" stops being an option. This episode covers what it takes to build that accountability across every role, every channel, and every technology decision your company is making right now. What You Will Learn Why measuring individual interactions instead of full customer journeys causes teams to celebrate outcomes that are actually failures Which voices of the customer most companies are collecting but never routing to the teams making product, marketing, and service decisions Why keeping customers is a bigger revenue lever than acquiring them at scale, and why most recognition and compensation structures have not caught up to that reality What it takes to make store staff, product owners, and agents show up as one brand to a customer who does not care about your org chart Why the pressure to adopt AI fast may be creating a problem worse than the one companies are trying to solve Have a question or thoughts to share? Leave a voice message: https://www.speakpipe.com/StacySherman Learn more at DoingCXRight.com and subscribe to the newsletter for more actionable strategies.

    27 min
  3. 213. How To Build An Effective Customer Loyalty Program: Lessons From IKEA | Martin Villanueva

    May 19

    213. How To Build An Effective Customer Loyalty Program: Lessons From IKEA | Martin Villanueva

    Most loyalty programs are designed around rewards: points and discounts that give customers a reason to return. That design produces a specific problem. When the incentive expires or another brand matches it, the customer accepts the offer and does not return. The companies that retain customers year over year treat loyalty as a relationship, not a transaction. Most companies have not made that shift yet. In this episode of Doing CX Right℠, Stacy Sherman examines that problem with Martin Villanueva, Global Head of Personalization and Loyalty at IKEA. They explain why most loyalty budgets stay underfunded, what that costs in long-term revenue, and the specific steps leaders need to take first. You will learn how to: Position loyalty as a growth engine, not a cost center, when making the financial case to the C-suite Use customer journey mapping to align CX, support, personalization, and marketing teams around a single experience Design a value exchange that gives customers a clear reason to share their data Apply AI to personalization in a way that increases relevance, not just message volume Measure customer loyalty through repeat purchase rate, active member rate, CLTV, and whether customers are sharing more data over time as a signal that they believe the brand delivers value Final Thoughts Customer acquisition costs rise every year. A loyal customer base reduces dependence on that spending. The leaders who make that investment first hold an advantage that competitors cannot easily replicate. Have a question or thoughts to share? Leave a voice message: https://www.speakpipe.com/StacySherman Learn more at DoingCXRight.com and subscribe to the newsletter for more actionable strategies.

    24 min
  4. 212. How to Recover From a Customer Service Mistake the Right Way | Stacy Sherman

    May 5

    212. How to Recover From a Customer Service Mistake the Right Way | Stacy Sherman

    Imagine you are enjoying dinner at a high-end restaurant, almost finished with the appetizer, when you notice a long strand of hair mixed into the food. What would you expect the restaurant to do? Well, this really happened. In this solo episode of Doing CX Right, host Stacy Sherman shares that experience, plus a second restaurant mistake that led to a very different outcome. Both businesses had a chance to recover, but only one response made her feel taken care of and more willing to forgive. Stacy explains why the moments after a service issue can matter more than the issue itself, and why correcting the problem is not the same as making it right. She also connects both stories to Qualtrics XM Institute research, featured in episode 210 with Isabelle Zdatny, showing how customer emotion influences forgiveness, trust, recommendations, and loyalty. This episode helps leaders rethink service recovery as a customer retention strategy, not a simple correction. What You Will Learn Why correcting a mistake and making it right are two different actions. What Qualtrics research reveals about the business impact of emotion when an experience does not go as expected. Why the memory customers carry from a difficult moment can influence whether they return or choose a competitor. What generous recovery looks like in practice, and why one small gesture can influence the customer's next decision. How one phrase can shift the conversation from care to blame. How to assess whether employees are equipped to protect loyalty during difficult customer moments. Have a question or thoughts to share? Leave a voice message: https://www.speakpipe.com/StacySherman Learn more at DoingCXRight.com and subscribe to the newsletter for more actionable strategies.

    14 min
  5. 210. A Better Way to Predict and Boost Customer Loyalty That Most Leaders Overlook | Isabelle Zdatny

    Apr 21

    210. A Better Way to Predict and Boost Customer Loyalty That Most Leaders Overlook | Isabelle Zdatny

    Most business leaders track traditional metrics such as NPS, Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), and average response time. They are, however, overlooking the single factor that reliably predicts customer return, referrals, increased spending, and the willingness to forgive a mistake: emotion. This episode focuses on proving the cost of this emotion gap and detailing the actions leaders must take now to achieve lasting success. Stacy Sherman spoke to Isabelle Zdatny at Qualtrics XM Institute about in-depth research that reveals what separates companies that earn customer loyalty from those that keep losing it without knowing why. Their conversation provides leaders with clear, actionable strategies for measuring and managing the emotional experience to drive measurable business outcomes. What you will learn: How to identify the one emotion your brand must stand for and turn it into a metric your leadership team will act on. Why customers with high emotion ratings are exponentially more likely to trust, forgive a mistake, and recommend your brand than any functional metric currently predicts. What a four-year longitudinal study of publicly traded companies reveals about the stock performance gap between emotion leaders and emotion laggards. Why AI deployed in customer service is eroding trust faster than it is creating efficiency, and what to do instead. How one company stopped measuring satisfaction entirely, created a proprietary metric tied to executive compensation, and changed how their entire organization operated. What behavioral signals inside your existing call recordings and chat transcripts are already telling you about how customers feel that post-transaction surveys will never capture. Learn more at DoingCXRight.com and subscribe to the newsletter for more actionable strategies. Book time with Stacy here.

    39 min
5
out of 5
54 Ratings

About

The Doing CX Right Podcast is a resource for businesses striving to increase revenue, reduce costs, and achieve sustainable competitive differentiation. Companies often pursue these goals ineffectively. This podcast challenges conventional thinking through innovative customer experience (CX) strategies. Each episode offers expert advice, blending human-centric approaches with the latest technology to solve business challenges. The show emphasizes that everyone has a CX role, regardless of job title or function, and provides actionable tactics for a unified effort. Beyond business strategies, you'll hear inspiring life lessons and personal triumphs, transforming organizations by capturing customer hearts and wallets. This approach results in a win-win-win: delighted customers, empowered employees, and a thriving business.

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