CX Innovators

Level AI

On CX Innovators, we sit down with enterprise CX leaders and innovators to unpack what’s driving exceptional customer experience today. We explore strategy, technology, operations, and the human side of CX: and where the industry is headed next.

  1. Why outages might actually be your biggest CX opportunity

    5d ago

    Why outages might actually be your biggest CX opportunity

    Drew Candres built support organizations where a single tweet on a Saturday night could move a market 10% and flood your queues while the rest of the world slept. Now as VP of Customer Experience at GameChanger, he's applying those same instincts to a completely different emotional context: parents trying to capture their kids' first home run. The contrast makes for one of the more grounded and honest conversations about what it actually takes to build CX operations that hold up when things go sideways. One of the sharpest observations in this episode: some of his highest CSAT scores, across every company he's worked for, came on outage days. When handled well, those days produced scores around 50% above the average. His argument is that customers already know things break. How you handle it is the only thing they're actually judging. Topics Discussed: Why containment rate is a meaningless metric and what it actually measures Manual support as the most expensive technical debt a scaling startup can carry The two-step framework for deciding what to automate and what to fix first Rate of change in inbound volume as an early warning system no platform has fully solved Why data alone doesn't move product teams, and the storytelling structure that does Embedding proactive support into the build process through phased rollouts and power user cohorts Why CX foundation work must come before executive headcount, not after Why emotional connection becomes the primary differentiator as AI compresses product advantages

    37 min
  2. Why CS Playbooks Are Failing Your Team

    May 14

    Why CS Playbooks Are Failing Your Team

    Most CS leaders respond to scale pressure by automating SMB and protecting enterprise. Leana Hart, Director of Customer Success at Axon, thinks that binary is costing companies on both ends — and she's spent her career managing the full spectrum, from SMB through Fortune 500 enterprise, to prove it. In this episode, Leana gets specific: the account tiering logic she actually uses, why she thinks the playbook-first approach backfires, and the question she teaches her team to ask customers that surfaces renewal risk faster than any health score. Topics discussed: Why ARR-based segmentation misses influential smaller accounts and underweights expansion potential in the SMB tier The 4-signal churn indicator Lena uses to identify at-risk accounts within a high-volume book: support ticket volume, webinar attendance, call recency, and 90-day product adoption trend Why rigid playbooks create noise rather than behavior, and what she builds instead to get CSMs thinking critically How quarterly portfolio reviews convert individual CSM wins into trackable revenue impact ahead of QBRs and annual reviews The direct renewal-readiness question she asks customers mid-cycle, and how to read the hesitation in that answer before it becomes a lost deal Why SMB retention is structurally worse than enterprise, and the specific investment gap on both sides that drives it Where tools like Claude and Cursor are already changing what CSMs can do with customer data, and the skill gap preventing most teams from getting there Why project management is the most under-hired and under-trained skill in CS, especially as enterprise account complexity grows Listen to more episodes:  Apple  Spotify  YouTube

    35 min
  3. How OpenAI won the AI race through experience design, not the model

    Apr 9

    How OpenAI won the AI race through experience design, not the model

    Vishal Anam has spent 20 years helping global organizations close the gap between measuring customer experience and actually acting on it. As Head of CX Consulting, Research and Analytics at Datamatics, he has worked across enough enterprise programs to know exactly where they break down. Most CX programs do not fail because organizations stop caring. They fail because the infrastructure for decision-making never gets built alongside the infrastructure for listening. Vishal makes that case clearly here, and backs it up with specific examples drawn from client work, including a contrarian read on why OpenAI captured early market dominance that had nothing to do with their underlying model. Topics discussed: Why NPS without decision pairing produces no real change The cognitive load framework for reducing CX decision fatigue How macro and cultural factors silently distort NPS scores across regions The SOP gap that breaks CX programs at scale Optimization vs. transformation: how to tell which one you actually need Why OpenAI's early lead came from onboarding design, not model quality Building the CFO business case around missed revenue, not satisfaction scores How AI is shifting the analytics function away from normalization toward action Why promoter neglect is a bigger missed opportunity than most teams realize Listen to more episodes:  Apple  Spotify  YouTube

    24 min
  4. Means, motive, and opportunity: why LendingTree uses a crime framework to train CX empathy

    Mar 12

    Means, motive, and opportunity: why LendingTree uses a crime framework to train CX empathy

    Brock Thompson spent 22 years in digital insurance and financial services, starting as a call center agent and eventually becoming VP of Customer Fulfillment at LendingTree, where he oversees inbound and outbound calls, SMS programs, calls technology, and the company's AI voice division. Having sat on both sides of the phone shapes how he thinks about where technology belongs in high-stakes consumer conversations. In this episode, he gets specific about how LendingTree built and justified their first consumer-facing AI voice product, how they brought skeptical call teams along, and why their approach to AI adoption looks more like a marathon than a sprint. Topics Discussed: The three-part "stickiness" framework: emotional, technological, and financial Starting the AI business case with one linear, fully measurable conversation path "Gut drives the test, data drives the decision" as a buying and build philosophy Why legal and compliance are the first call, not the last, in any AI rollout The means, motive, and opportunity framework for training human agent empathy Where human agents still outperform AI in financial services conversations Reframing AI to call teams as reallocation of effort, not elimination of roles Evaluating vendors by whether they understand your actual problem, not just their product The rule of one: prove it once, measure it once, then scale Listen to more episodes:  Apple  Spotify  YouTube

    34 min
  5. How one IVR change eliminated 2.7 million inbound calls a year

    Feb 26

    How one IVR change eliminated 2.7 million inbound calls a year

    Wes Dudley has spent over 30 years leading CX at scale, including JCPenney, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, and Broad River Retail, the largest licensee of Ashley Furniture. He moved ticket resolution from nine days to eight hours, eliminated 2.7 million inbound calls annually with a single IVR change, and built a 750-seat contact center during COVID while call volume jumped from 16,000 to 115,000 calls a day overnight. This conversation covers the specific decisions behind those numbers, including how he sequences people, process, and technology investments, when to keep humans in the loop on high-stakes interactions, and what he looks for in a technology partner after seeing both sides of good and bad ones. Topics Discussed: Why AI without a defined plan consistently underdelivers Moving ticket resolution from 9 days to 8 hours through routing, not technology Eliminating 2.7 million calls annually with one IVR implementation Three-tier triage model built to absorb a 7x overnight call surge during COVID PPT framework for sequencing people, process, and technology decisions How the nature of high-emotion purchases should shape your AI and human handoff design CX All-Stars identity program and its role in remote team retention What Wes looks for in a technology partner beyond price and product Listen to more episodes:  Apple  Spotify  YouTube

    29 min
  6. From 40-minute wait times to under 60 seconds without adding headcount | Allan Harari

    Feb 5

    From 40-minute wait times to under 60 seconds without adding headcount | Allan Harari

    Allan Harari cut Comerica Bank's contact center wait times from 20-40 minutes to under 60 seconds without hiring additional agents. The transformation required rebuilding foundational infrastructure first—workforce management systems providing real-time data instead of monthly reports, quality assurance platforms generating actionable insights, and AI deployed as agent augmentation rather than replacement. His three-year roadmap prioritized operational discipline over technology shortcuts, recovering 10% capacity through schedule optimization before any AI implementation. At USAA, he led a specialized team handling 40,000+ loss-of-loved-one calls monthly for military families, creating direct experience with where human judgment remains non-negotiable versus where AI accelerates outcomes. His vendor selection framework cuts through sales pitches: define the exact problem, know what success looks like, then ask questions exposing actual delivery capabilities. By choosing no-code solutions managed by frontline staff who understand the problems daily, he avoided the overhead trap of building custom solutions from component pieces. Topics discussed: Cutting average handle time from 11+ minutes to 7 minutes through technology and contact center hygiene Recovering 10% capacity by reducing lunch breaks from 60 to 30 minutes with proper scheduling Eliminating 2.5-minute gaps between calls by fixing telephony auto-in state configuration Deploying auto-summarization reducing after-call work to 3 seconds instead of manual note-taking across 20 systems Maintaining 92% CSAT despite 20-40 minute wait times through customer loyalty, then improving speed without sacrificing quality Leading 40,000+ monthly loss-of-loved-one calls at USAA requiring human empathy for military families accessing critical benefits Selecting no-code AI platforms allowing frontline staff to design solutions versus hiring engineering armies Using "box of Legos" vendor evaluation: pre-built capabilities you assemble versus raw components requiring custom development Defining top three problems keeping you up at night before engaging vendors to avoid broad, unfocused implementations Building AI literacy by teaching proper prompting techniques rather than expecting plug-and-play magic Listen to more episodes:  Apple  Spotify  YouTube

    27 min
  7. Case age over handle time: The metric that actually improved NPS, CSAT, and customer spend | Zach Greco

    Jan 22

    Case age over handle time: The metric that actually improved NPS, CSAT, and customer spend | Zach Greco

    Zach Greco runs a 100-agent fully remote contact center at Floor & Decor with under 10% annual turnover. His operational philosophy starts with one question before deploying any technology: "What's in it for them?" This applies whether rolling out AI knowledge bases, CRM workflow changes, or new telephony systems. By training their chatbot exclusively on indexed website content, his team eliminated the hallucination problem while creating a clear feedback loop—when the AI gives wrong answers, they know exactly which source page needs fixing. His team discovered that case age—not first call resolution or handle time—was the metric that actually moved the business. Longer case resolution times correlated directly with higher costs, lower NPS, and reduced customer spend. By focusing operational improvements on shrinking case age, they improved outcomes across the board without needing a "silver bullet" technology replacement. Topics discussed: Case age reduction as the primary driver of NPS, CSAT, and customer lifetime value Training AI chatbots exclusively on indexed company content to eliminate hallucinations Achieving 10% annual turnover in fully remote operations through life-work balance prioritization Agent-to-AI consultation model where bots query human agents mid-conversation without customer transfers Technology adoption barriers in retail environments and the WIIFM (What's In It For Me) framework Evaluating when AI automation fails: warranty claim diagnosis where misreading moisture damage costs thousands Breaking down questionnaire friction that causes frontline workarounds and data quality issues Multi-channel customer preference mapping for professional contractors versus DIY consumers Listen to more episodes:  Apple  Spotify  YouTube

    46 min
  8. The 3-action formula that predicts above-average customer retention | David Melendez

    12/04/2025

    The 3-action formula that predicts above-average customer retention | David Melendez

    David Melendez process-mapped Instructure's entire onboarding flow and realized they were operationally optimized for the wrong outcome: getting customers keys to their purchase rather than setting them up to renew. The team had confused access provisioning with value delivery—a distinction that becomes critical when services drive the onboarding motion for a 50%+ market share LMS provider. David, Sr. Director of Customer Experience Strategy & Operations, brings a method from his Alteryx days: identify the three customer actions that correlate with above-average renewals, then architect everything to make those frictionless. At Alteryx it was community membership, connecting to data, and running a workflow. At Instructure, he's rebuilding to answer that question before pointing AI agents at consultant workflows. His approach to AI adoption counters the vendor pressure: inventory what's already available in your stack (Gainsight's Atlas, Staircase AI), instrument proper CSM role definitions in those systems, then automate only the repeatable service consultant tasks with clean data inputs. No foundation means AI accelerates broken processes. Topics Discussed: Process mapping onboarding to separate access provisioning from value delivery outcomes Alteryx's three-action renewal correlation framework applied to new context Vendor AI capability inventory before building or buying new tooling Instrumenting CSM roles in Gainsight before deploying Atlas and agent features Service consultant workflow automation as first AI deployment target Hiring for specific learning goals rather than general curiosity claims Automating yourself out of the same job annually as ops team standard Strategic thinking and business partnership as the non-automatable skill layer Listen to more episodes:  Apple  Spotify  YouTube

    27 min
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About

On CX Innovators, we sit down with enterprise CX leaders and innovators to unpack what’s driving exceptional customer experience today. We explore strategy, technology, operations, and the human side of CX: and where the industry is headed next.

Information

  • Creator
    Level AI
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    19
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Level AI
  • Show Website
    CX Innovators