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Kirk Laughlin is the Founder and Chief Analyst at Nearshore Americas. He is based in Connecticut in the US. Nearshore Americas is the definitive authority on knowledge service exports across the Caribbean and North, Central and South America.  Kirk recently hosted the CrossConnect Forum in London. This event was focused on introducing many Caribbean destinations to a British and European audience. Peter Ryan talked to Kirk about the forum and the opportunity for non-US companies to take a closer look at the Caribbean region for CX and BPO. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirklaughlinmanagingdirector/ https://nearshoreamericas.com/ https://crossconnectforum.com/    

Chandni Bhatt is the Senior UK Manager for Member Happiness at Beauty Pie. She is based close to London in the UK. Beauty Pie is a member and subscription-based service offering cosmetics and beauty products to customers in the UK and US. In this discussion with Peter Ryan, Chandni talks about how D2C customer realtionships work and how to deliver great service within a member-based organisation. https://www.linkedin.com/in/chandnib157/ http://www.beautypie.com/      

Matt Sims is the President EMEA at Alorica. He is based in the UK. Headquartered in the US, Alorica has recently been leaning into Europe so Mark Hillary called Matt to explore the differences between the European and American CX markets and how economic uncertainty may affect CX and BPO strategies. https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-sims-7892542/ https://www.alorica.com/  

Stuart Knight is a technology executive with over 25 years experience leading multiple organizations in CIO and CTO roles. He is on the Leadership Team at flōswitch and he is based in Cardiff, Wales. In this conversation with Peter Ryan, Stuart talks about the issues of technology redundancy and how BPOs need to address these issues if they want to optimize costs. With a possible recession looming, it's time to take a look at your systems and decide what needs to go. https://floswitch.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-knight-tech-exec/ NOTE: This episode was originally released on March 9th, but was released again a few days later to fix a problem in the episode meta-data.  

Nathan Muniz is the founder of 247SECRETARY.COM. He is based in Ocala, Florida. 247SECRETARY.COM is a BPO that works with agents in the Philippines. Nathan has worked hard to specifically make his team a valued part of the local community in a great example of impact sourcing in one of the most popular destinations for offshore CX. In this interview, Nathan talks to Peter Ryan about how he started the company and why he is so focused on the community and making a difference. https://www.linkedin.com/in/247seretary/ https://247secretary.com/contact  

Marianne Rutz is the founder of Rutz Consulting. She has a long track record of advising BPO and customer service operations and she also hosts the popular Operational Excellence Podcast. She is based in Scotland. Peter Ryan heard an episode of Operational Excellence focused on the topic 'Where is your CX going wrong?' The episode focused on why companies keep making the same mistakes so he called Marianne to ask about how to avoid these CX breakdowns. https://www.linkedin.com/in/marianne-rutz/ https://rutzconsulting.com/ https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-operational-excellence-show/id1499082914  

Imagine if you were defined by the worst mistake you made for the rest of your life And denied of opportunity, growth and personal success at every turn. That’s how it is today for more than 200,000 incarcerated women in the United States. They, like all of us, made a mistake. Only their lapse in judgment came with a different consequence. Televerde has a unique business model. They create opportunities for incarcerated women to train for and then work in CX jobs. They help incarcerated women transition back into society by allowing them to transfer into a Televerde center as their sentence is completed. Michelle Cirocco is the Chief Impact Officer at Televerde and CEO of the Televerde Foundation - based in Phoenix, Arizona. She talked to Peter Ryan about how Televerde has taken an unusual approach to locating new talent - an approach that gives people a chance to rebuild their life. It's great for the individuals that get a chance to train and be employed again, but it's also great for clients of Televerde as they can access a pool of highly motivated talent - just as it is getting harder and harder to locate and hire people. https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellecirocco/ http://www.televerdefoundation.org/ https://televerde.com/about/our-model/

Alistair Niederer is well known as a leader in the CX industry. He has led several major companies and was heading the Davies Group customer experience consulting business when the pandemic arrived in 2020 - leading to many months stuck in lockdown in a Toronto apartment.  Now back in his London base, Alistair is a non-executive director of Blackout Technologies, focused on WFH security. In this epsiode of the podcast he talks to Mark Hillary about how to approach WFH now that hybrid and WFH is clearly becoming a permanent feature of most workplaces. https://www.linkedin.com/in/aniederer/ https://www.blackout-technologies.com/  

John Sills is MD at The Foundation, based in London. The Foundation is a management consultancy focused on growth, but in this episode of CX Files Mark Hillary talked to him about his new book 'The Human Experience.' Published by Bloomsbury the book is out TODAY so this is a CX Files exclusive - probably the first media interview post publication of the book. The Human Experience is focused on CX and how companies need to find a better blend of digital and human CX - in particular retaining the human element of customer service where it remains essential. https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnjsills/ https://www.the-foundation.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Human-Experience-customers-successful-organization/dp/1399401734 https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/human-experience-9781399401739/  

Paige Webster is the Founder and CEO of Webster Global Site Selectors. He is based in Phoenix, Arizona. Paige is focused on site selection and economic development and he has advised companies seeking to invest in new regions all over the world. In this epsiode Paige talks to Peter Ryan about the complexity of site selection and how companies decide where to locate their offices and infrastructure. https://www.linkedin.com/in/paige-webster-cecd-562bbb21/ http://www.globalsiteselectors.com/  

Justin Custer is the Founder and CEO of ChatLingual. He is based in Boulder, Colorado. This CX Files episode delves into how digital chat is revolutionizing the way businesses interact with their customers; thus transforming the customer experience. Mark Hillary and guest Justin Custer discuss the benefits of digital chat for customers (and employees), including convenience, speed, and personalized language interactions, as well as the advantages for businesses, such as cost savings, increased customer engagement, and improved customer loyalty. The future of digital chat in customer service, how will it shape the way businesses interact with customers? https://www.linkedin.com/in/thinkjc/ https://www.chatlingual.com/  

Stephanie Todd is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is the founder and CEO of advisory firm Soul CX and has a history managing travel and airline customer service processes. After his own travel nightmares over the holiday season, Peter Ryan called Stephanie to ask about the problems airlines are facing at present. How do they recover from the pandemic disruption and rebuild customer loyalty - right now the news is filled with one travel meltdown after another... how can CX help airlines out of this? Did Peter ever get his luggage back? https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniemtodd/ https://soulcx.com/  

Mark Walton spent the past couple of years as CEO of specialist work-from-home BPO company Sensée. He stood down in May 2022 and then launched Cloudbase Partners with the Flex@Home Workspace Health & Safety audit app as the intial product. This app helps companies to audit their WFH environment to ensure the business knows their employees are working in a safe enviroment and their wellbeing is being managed. It also helps the business reduce the risk of employee litigation, regulatory investigation, and criminal prosecution. WFH hurridly introduced during the pandemic now has to become permanent and this means ensuring the safety of WFH employees.  Mark explains what his new business is doing, how he believes WFH will develop in 2023, and how to build a team culture when nobody physically works together. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-walton-0627a74/ https://www.flex-home.app/  

It's the end of 2022. In the last few days of the year you may be away from the office taking it easy, so why not catch up with this final CX Files for 2022? Peter Ryan talked to a group of CX experts and analysts to learn about their observations on 2022 and ideas for what to watch in 2023. The panel included: Rod Jones (Johannesburg, South Africa) Owner, Rod Jones Contact Centre Consulting https://rodjones.co.za/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodjonessouthafrica/    Lian Rowlands (Royal Wootton Bassett, UK) Director of Customer Success, Conversations By Ami https://www.meetami.ai/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/lian-rowlands-a26119/   Jon Yarlett (London, UK) COO, Intelligent Sourcing https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-yarlett-91282aa/ https://www.intelligentsourcing.net/   Melissa O'Brien (Boston, US) Research and Operations Leader HfS Research https://www.hfsresearch.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-o-brien/  

There is no guest this week because your hosts Mark Hillary and Peter Ryan decided to talk about their own CX highlights from 2022 as well as their favourite interviews from the CX Files this year. CX Files delivers 52 episodes every single year. It's like Bob Dylan's "never ending tour." We deliver a new episode every week and in this special Christmas 2022 edition we look back at the year... https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhillary/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-ryan-montreal/  

CX Files is not the only CX podcast out there! You probably know that already, but in this episode we have invited other CX podcasting peers to join us in taking a look back at the highlights of 2022 and forward into the expected CX trends coming in 2023... Peter Ryan leads the discussion and this episode features: Wiktor Doktór (Warsaw, Poland) CEO of Pro Progressio  https://www.linkedin.com/in/wiktordoktor https://proprogressio.pl/ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-morning-bss-world/id1487461301   Marianne Rutz (Sauchie, Scotland) Founder, Rutz Consulting https://www.linkedin.com/in/marianne-rutz/ https://rutzconsulting.com/ https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-operational-excellence-show/id1499082914   Stacy Sherman (New York, USA) Doing CX Right podcast https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacysherman https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/doing-cx-right-podcast/id1573754741   David Powers (Los Angeles, USA) Chief Experience Officer, Rooter Hero Plumbing & Air https://rooterhero.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidjpowers2/ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/caffeinated-cx/id1586545435    

Steve Mosser is the Group CEO and Head of Innovation at Sensée. He is based in London, UK. Sensée is a homeworking specialist. They design customer service and CX solutions using 100% WFH teams - and have done so for around two decades. When the pandemic arrived Sensée already had all their people at home anyway - they started advising clients on how to manage the crisis. In this interview, Steve talks to Mark Hillary about how to build a team culture with a team that is not working in the same place and how companies can move on from just WFH to embracing more flexible work. As companies negotiate a hybrid future that involves offices and working from home, how has Sensée built a strong corporate culture with no offices at all? https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-mosser-77136712/ https://www.sensee.co.uk  

Everyone is familiar with South Africa as a CX destination. Maybe you have also worked with Egypt and a few others too, but Martin Roe, the CEO of CCI Global, is on a mission to build far greater customer service capabilities in many other African nations. Martin is a Brit based in Dubai and Peter Ryan called him to talk about the development of many emerging CX destinations in Africa. https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-roe-55a4724/ https://www.cciglobal.com/

Roger Beadle is the founder and CEO of Limitless. Roger is based in London, UK. Peter Ryan caught up with Roger to talk about GigCX and how it offers the opportunity to do more than just change how customer service agents are paid - hiring agents that love the brands they support is just one example. Flexible CX is about far more than just WFH. https://www.linkedin.com/in/roger-beadle-96048410/ https://www.limitlesstech.com/  

Chris Gillen is the CEO of A Closer Look. He is based near to Atlanta, GA. A Closer Look is focused on CX market research and explores most of the major industry verticals. In this discussion with Peter Ryan he talks about research A Closer Look has carried out on the travel industry - focusing on the forthcoming holiday season and trends to watch for in 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgillen/ https://a-closer-look.com/