Kate is a former rock 'n' roll DJ and award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise. What she learned in radio about the neuroscience of music helps fuel Lately's artificial intelligence.

In this interview, Kate shares insights on how businesses should integrate AI technology into the customer experience, including the challenges business leaders can expect to face.

She also shares how businesses can balance the benefits of automation with the importance of maintaining a human touch in their customer interactions.

Finally, Kate also gives her view on Generative AI, whether it’s ready to be used in CX, and where it falls short in terms of providing customer support.

He is also the co-founder of Gain Grow Retain, a community for Customer Success leaders to share their work, collaborate and grow their careers.

Jay has over 20 years of experience in the software industry and has held leadership roles at prominent technology companies, such as Blackbaud and PeopleMatter.

He’s also the author of a weekly newsletter and the co-host of the Gain Grow Retain podcast.

In this interview, Jay speaks about the rise of the customer success discipline in the CX industry and how it differs from traditional customer support.

He shares tips on what CX leaders can do to change the way they think about customer success so they can fully grasp what it is and how to implement it correctly in their organizations.

Jay discusses the most important things CX leaders need to keep in mind when looking to scale customer success.

Finally, Jay and Chris discuss how brand advocates (GigCX Experts) play a role in scaling customer success, and the massive benefits of using GigCX Experts bring to the customer, the brand, and the advocates themselves.

Sue has an illustrious career, spanning many organizations over many territories, including Vodafone, Microsoft, Github, and Google.

In this interview, Sue dives into her CX career, shares how she views GigCX, and the approach she took to implement GigCX during her time at Microsoft and Github, and her efforts to bring it to Google as well.

She also talks about the biggest challenges affecting the CX industry, and how GigCX is solving some of those challenges.

Finally, she offers her time-tested advice for organizations looking to move all or part of the CX operations to a GigCX model.

Aimee has over two decades of experience improving service delivery and transforming customer experiences through employee engagement and customer-centric process improvement initiatives.

She is an experienced global public speaker and trainer, and regularly writes on a variety of experience management topics on LinkedIn, CustomerThink, CXPA blog, and XM Institute blog.

In this interview, Aimee shares what Experience Management is, how it differs from CX, and how organizations can leverage it to improve the overall customer experience.

She also shares her view how how Experience Management fits into the GigCX model, and how companies can activate promoters to become active participants in the customer journey.

She highlights several benefits of leveraging brand advocates in a GigCX model, including, gaining amazing learning opportunities from your most loyal customer advocates.

Finally, she shares why it's important for companies to be thinking about how they can bring to brand advocates the information they need so they can demonstrate the right behaviors to create more customers like them. This includes helping them feel valued and important, preparing them appropriately to handle various customer service situations, and rewarding them fairly for the work they do.

Ian is a Certified Customer Experience Professional and Customer Experience Specialist. A certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Ian has spent over twenty years in business improvement, working hard to ensure that the businesses he works – businesses like BT, Pfizer, Thomson Reuters and Cisco – for are as customer focused as possible

He was recognized in 2021 as Customer Experience Magazine's Top CX Influencer. A founder and inaugural board member of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), he is an Executive Director and Ambassador for The Customer Institute and the Director for The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM)'s course on customer experience management.

In this interview, Ian shares what it means for an organization to be focused on the customer experience, and claims that most companies haven't truly changed their mindset from being product-focused to customer-focused.

Ian talks about the difference between customer service and customer experience, claiming that service is just one element of the experience you deliver to customers, and that customer experience is the representation of everything a company does for customers.

He also discusses the role of technology (including AI) in the customer experience, and how companies can leverage it in the right way to improve the customer experience. He shares how brand advocates can play a role in developing longer, deeper, human relationships with customers over time.

David helps organizations better understand and connect with their changing customers and clients to help future-proof their businesses. He is also the author of five books, and his insights have been featured in thousands of media outlets around the world.

In this interview, David shares how CX can serve as a competitive advantage for businesses, and why business leaders don’t see CX as an opportunity to create a competitive advantage.

David outlines some ways CX leaders can design the customer experience to be a competitive advantage in the market.

Finally, David shares how leveraging brand advocates in your CX can play a role in creating a competitive advantage.

Natalie is a Wall Street Journal Best-Selling Author, Speaker, Board Member, Expert In Residence, and a Strategist in AI, CX and EX. She cowrote Empathy in Action and has a massive amount of industry experience, including the time she spent as an analyst and consultant.

In this interview, Natalie shares what "empathy in action" really means, what it looks like in real-world scenarios, and why many organizations get it wrong.

She also discusses why most businesses view customer service as a cost center, why it's hard to change that mindset, and what it's going to take to change to a "cost savings, revenue generating" mindset.

Finally, she shares why she loves GigCX and how it can help organizations in their journey to cultivate empathy in the customer experience.

Annette is the founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc., a company ushering in the new wave of customer-centric businesses. An author and in-demand speaker, Annette uses the lessons of her nearly three decades of experience to inspire readers and audiences, daring them to elevate the game for their organizations and themselves.

In this interview, Annette shares what it means to be a customer-centric organization, with customers at the heart of everything you do.

She also sheds light on the difference between being "customer focused" and "customer centric," highlights the characteristics of a customer-centric business, and outlines the value of being customer-centric.

Annette and Chris, the host of the podcast, discuss how they see brand advocates - or GigCX Experts - playing a role in creating a customer-centric organization.

Claire is Senior Director of Thought Leadership at Genesys, and Ginger is Thought Leadership Director at Genesys.

In this interview, Claire and Ginger share how the convergence of four big factors are affecting the CX industry:

1. The rapidly changing nature of customer expectations around quality customer service.
2. How organizations are struggling to meet these new customer expectations, innovating at the speed they need.
3. How access to talent and high employee turnover continue to be a challenge for businesses.
4. And how the use of AI in customer support continues to evolve.

They also discuss how GigCX benefits organizations, specifically, how it provides a really good way for businesses to have flexibility and scalability, without growing the cost base.

Finally, they share their thoughts on the future of work, and cite a study they completed with MIT Technology Review called Customer Experience and the Future of Work.

The study found that 94% of CX leaders believe brand advocacy and specialized product knowledge will increase over the next couple of years. It also found that the same percentage of CX leaders also expect to hire more CX employees with emotional intelligence and listening and interpersonal skills.

They drew a comparison to how GigCX workers already meet this need of having deep product knowledge, being brand advocates, and having inherent emotional intelligence as users of the products and services themselves.

Jackie is a senior leader with extensive operations experience and reputation for building and developing high-performing teams. She's a change champion and is considered a highly creative visionary.

In this interview, Jackie shares how Zwift's explosive growth and the need to scale quickly led the brand to choose to use GigCX in its customer service organization.

She emphasizes the importance of overcoming the mental leap to embrace a new way of doing things, and how to develop confidence within the organization that GigCX will benefit the brand.

Jackie also shares the incredible business results Zwift has experienced by implementing GigCX, and how it views the future of GigCX in its organization.

Finally, she shares advice for other CX leaders considering GigCX, including ways to start small, gain small wins, and build confidence among business leaders.

Dennis is a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft. And David is the Community Support Planner for the Microsoft Answers Support Community.

In this interview, Dennis and David share the impact GigCX has had on the Microsoft Answers Support Community, including faster response times to community posts, higher customer satisfaction, and lower support costs.

The Microsoft community is one of the brand's key support channels. It has enormous amounts of customer volume, but before using GigCX, they couldn't scale fast enough to keep up with volume by hiring paid community advocates. Instead, they turned to GigCX to allow them to scale faster.

Dennis and David also spoke about the role AI and ChatGPT will play in CX, and how it may affect gig, potentially reducing the need for GigCX in terms of headcount, but also providing an opportunity for gig experts who may have less subject matter expertise to use AI to help customers.

They also shared their views on the perception gig has in the marketplace. Gig is not about corporations exploiting workers. It's about giving people ownership over what they choose to do at any given moment of the day. It's about giving people power over their work life that they likely wouldn't have in a traditional work environment.

Finally, they shared how organizations can approach bringing GigCX into their service environment, including the importance of first identifying what problem you're trying to solve with GigCX, and being very clear about the quality of service you expect to see from gig experts.

Gupta is a Senior Knowledge Expert at McKinsey & Company, with more than a decade of experience in contact center, advanced analytics and back office processes.

Raabe is a partner at McKinsey & Company, and leads McKinsey’s customer care, e-care, and digital care work in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He advises leading technology, telecommunications, internet, and media companies to shape their customer-interaction strategies and foster customer engagement while capturing growth opportunities in the converging digital world.

Both were contributors to McKinsey’s 2021 report: An on-demand revolution in customer-experience operations?

In this interview, Vinay and Julian share several CX trends they're witnessing, dive into the benefits of a GigCX model, share best practices for organizations looking to implement a GigCX model, and more.

Kristin has made a career out of innovating the way we work. Prior to joining Flex, Kristin was CEO of the Education Quality Outcomes Standards (EQOS) board, and senior fellow and former director of New America's Initiative on Work, Workers, and Technology.

She also co-founded Shift: The Commission on Work, Workers, and Technology, a joint project of New America and Bloomberg.

Before that, she worked on technology, innovation, and national security policy in the U.S. Senate for Sens. Mark Warner, Mark Pryor, Amy Klobuchar, and Richard Lugar.

In this interview, Kristin shares insights on who app-based workers are, including their personas and habits, how they're using the apps, how often, etc.

She also comments on recent proposed changes in U.S. legislation surrounding app-based workers.

She and her organization are focused on ensuring the U.S. Department of Labor hears from workers and understands why the structure of app-based platforms works for these workers.

Flex Association's research shows that 70-80% of people are not only satisfied with app-based work, but are hugely enthusiastic about it because of its flexibility.

She and her organization are also combatting misperceptions about app-based work among U.S. legislators, one of the biggest being that those who do app-based work do so because they're having a hard time finding work. She shares where she hopes to see the legislative process go in the near future.

To learn more about the Flex Association, visit https://www.flexassociation.org.

With over 20 years in leadership roles in global technology, BPO and consulting organizations, Iain has led international teams and inspired people to deliver results. Iain is a highly driven senior executive and revenue leader with extensive experience in the SaaS, technology and outsourcing industries.

In this interview, Iain shares some of the challenges facing the Customer Experience (CX) industry and leaders, including employee burnout, attrition, and mental health, as well as dealing with increasing complexity with technology and other factors.

He gives insights into why GigCX has risen in popularity, and highlighted how Covid enabled a different way of working and shifted people's work preferences, leading to the rapid advance of GigCX.

He highlights the benefits of GigCX to individuals and brands, and states that GigCX is a game changer - a model that can fundamentally shift how CX is delivered in a modern age.

Mike Havard is a well-known customer management, channel and technology industry leader. He brings 30+ years of experience leading and growing businesses in the CX industry. He has held leadership roles with organizations like BT, Sitel, CM Insight and Verint. Most recently, he was a founding director of Ember, a professional services group focused on service strategies and performance transformation for champion brands globally. Ember was acquired by Davies Group in 2018. He has also held various non-executive director, investor and advisory roles in a range of innovative technology organizations, including anti-fraud technologies and e-learning.

In this interview, Mike shares his view on the biggest challenge facing CX leaders today -- an increase in workload (i.e. the amount of resources needed to manage the incoming customer service volume), which is placing a greater burden on the workforce and driving shortages in skilled staffing.

He also shares that he feels organization are too focused on volume and cost, rather than on customer value.

Despite all of the operational benefits GigCX brings to organizations, Mike believes the real excitement is about customer value. GigCX will play a huge role in the future because it will help organizations understand the value of customer contacts.

According to Mike, at the heart of GigCX is the passion organizations can tap into with your customers, as well as the trust it creates with customers.

As a leader in a technology-led contact center organization, Neil embraces new and emerging technology and trends and make sure that we leverage those trends to unlock value within both customer and client base, but also employee base.

In this interview, Neil shares three trends he sees in the CX industry surrounding employee expectations, consumer expectations, and new and emerging technologies.

He shares what he feels will set organizations apart in light of these trends, and how GigCX align with these trends and will help organizations achieve the results now and in the future.

Finally, he gives his insights on an evolution from experience to trust, and how GigCX will be the key to achieving a level of consumer trust that organizations have yet to achieve.

Catherine leads post-sales support for all of the PlayStation products and services. Also leads player-to-player moderation and online safety for the PlayStation network.

In this interview, Catherine gives us a peek behind the curtain on how PlayStation came to use GigCX in their organization, which began in a very cautious way to now expanding and growing to other areas of their business.

She shares her views on the benefits of GigCX and why other organizations should consider it.

Ryan Strategic Advisory is the world’s most trusted source of actionable insight into the global front-office BPO and customer experience sectors.

He is known worldwide as an influential and trusted BPO and CX research analyst, strategic advisor and thought leader. He is also the co-host of the CX Files podcast with our friend Mark Hillary.

In this interview, Peter shares what he feels is the key to solving the challenge contact centers are facing of attracting and retaining talent.

He also shares his views on GigCX and the advantages of the gig model of CX, including the level of empathy brands can achieve by tapping into the ambassadorship of its own customers to assist with CX.

Learn more about Peter Ryan at https://ryanadvisory.com.

Nick helps leading brands to transform their customer service offering, bringing deep experience in operations, customer loyalty, and digital transformation.

In this interview, Nick gives his take on the current state of the contact center and agent experience. He shares that there's a change in thinking among customer service employees about what's important to them when it comes to work and career, including better pay, more flexibility, and being able to actually solve problems for customers.

He also shares his thoughts on the gig model and how it's moving from a discrete channel, separate from other CS channels, or overflow channel, to a more integrated approach to an overall service offering.

Finally, he talks about how GigCX has a lower barrier of entry compared to other gig opportunities, as well as how GigCX differs from other gig-based opportunities, including less wasted time and more efficiency.

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Each week, Paul provides insights and perspective to over 100,000 readers of his weekly LinkedIn newsletter, and he frequently shares his insights as a contributor in Fast Company, TechCrunch, and Forbes, as well as a keynote speaker and panelist at events around the world.

In this interview, Paul shares his views on the rise of the independent worker and the desire of employees for more flexibility and autonomy.

He sheds light on why brands should adopt a gig mindset, how they should navigate implementing it in their organizations, and how brands should approach working with the gig community.

Download the free 2022 GigCX Report

Merijn is a leader of all things related to workforce engagement, building and delivering innovative solutions to help drive experience as a service.

In this interview, Merijn shares how Gig Experts fit into creating a frictionless, holistic customer experience, and the role bots and automation play in the process.

He also shares how the "Conversation Function" associated with GigCX is critical to a successful CX operation, creating a stronger human connection with customers.

Finally, he shares his views on the future of asynchronous messaging in customer experience, given the changing consumer communication preferences.

Download the free 2022 GigCX Report

Chad is a well-known advocate for customer experience best practices. He works tirelessly to showcase the success of today’s CX executives.

In this interview, Chad shares how the appetite for GigCX is changing in the CX industry, how consumer preferences are skewing toward peer-to-peer support, and why GigCX is making the CX industry better.

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Roger Beadle, CEO and co-founder of Limitless, and Megan Neale, COI and co-founder of Limitless, share why they started Limitless and Gig for Customer Experience (GigCX) phenomenon.

They share why CX leaders should care about GigCX, what's driving organizations to adopt this new agile CX model, and the massive benefits it offers companies and organizations.

Download the free 2022 GigCX Report