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Your dashboard is not the action. Here is how to turn customer feedback into real change.

Yanique Grant sits down with Ryan Tamminga, Chief Customer Officer at Alchemer, a CX feedback platform used across almost every industry worldwide.

Drawing on a career at Deloitte, Accenture and Reed Group, Ryan explains why feedback must reach a human when automation fails, how digging beyond dashboards revealed 15 customer segments where one company expected seven, and why curiosity, not ego, is what moves CX forward in the age of AI.

In this episode:

• Deciding what to automate and when to escalate to a live human
• Moving past dashboards and sentiment scores to feedback that triggers action
• One simple step to close the loop with customers this week
• What to do when leadership disagrees with what customers are saying
• How AI agents will change the way customers engage with brands
• Why AI evolves, rather than replaces, the human role in CX

Featured resources:

Book: The works of John Steinbeck (Ryan is reading his entire anthology to sharpen his storytelling and narration)
Alchemer (Ryan uses his own platform daily to stay close to customers)
Claude with MCP connections into Salesforce and Gong
Iris, Alchemer's new AI native CX platform

Connect with the guest:
LinkedIn: Ryan Tamminga
Website: alchemer.com (use the Contact Us page and it will find its way to Ryan)
Alchemer customers: mention you heard Ryan on this podcast in any Alchemer survey and it will reach him

Follow the show: X @NavigatingCX and join our private Facebook group, Navigating the Customer Experience Community.

Hosted by Yanique Grant.

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Is human support about to become a luxury only premium customers can afford?

Yanique Grant sits down with Ben Rosenberg, VP of Customer Experience Delivery at ChurnZero, a SaaS leader with two decades of customer experience behind him at companies like Zenefits and Sendoso. Ben gives an honest answer on whether automation is creating a two tier CX model, explains why AI still struggles with complex B2B context, and shares the data that convinced his team course based customer education is dead or dying. Plus, how he uses AI as an Iron Man suit for his team, not a replacement.

In this episode:

• Why a two tier CX model already exists and how automation could widen it
• Human support as a strategic differentiator, not just a premium perk
• Where AI still falls short in complex B2B support
• Three months of data that changed ChurnZero's customer education strategy
• Designing training for the 90 percent of users who just want to get on with their day
• Ben's guiding quotes for pushing through pressure

Featured resources:

Book: How I Built This (NPR podcast hosted by Guy Raz): long form interviews with founders and CEOs, Ben's favorite listen for work
ChurnZero (customer success platform for post sale teams)
Claude and Claude Code (AI assistant Ben uses daily for organization and building team automations)
YouTube (where most people now go to learn)
Raspberry Pi (the kit Ben is using to learn home automation and hardware basics)
Heart Over Hardware: Mastering the Human Skills AI Can't Touch. Our CX Human and AI Lab, live on Zoom, Tuesday, October 13, 6:00 to 7:00 PM Eastern. Hands on and interactive, not a lecture. Seats are $30. Register at the link and bring your team.

Connect with the guest:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/benarosenberg (Ben is most active here and welcomes messages)
Company: churnzero.com

Ben is active in several CX networking groups and loves to talk shop on anything discussed in this episode.

Follow the show: X @NavigatingCX and join our private Facebook group, Navigating the Customer Experience Community. Hosted by Yanique Grant.

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AI won't replace your people. It will replace the ones acting like robots.

Returning guest Jeff Toister, best-selling author of Human Service: The Skills AI Can't Replace, joins Yanique Grant to unpack where humans still win in a world racing to automate. Drawing on new research spanning more than 370,000 phone calls and 400-plus face-to-face interactions, Jeff makes the data-backed case for connection, understanding, and advocacy, the three human skills AI simply can't provide.

In this episode:

- Why connection is efficient: warm rapport makes calls 16% shorter
- Understanding and advocacy, the skills that beat automation on complex issues
- The greeting research: 12% better first-contact resolution and warmer customers
- Why AI replaces the transactional employee, not the true expert
- How to simplify your service strategy heading into 2027

Featured resources:

Book: Human Service: The Skills AI Can't Replace by Jeff Toister
Book: The Service Culture Handbook by Jeff Toister
Zoom (video conferencing Jeff uses daily, while noting no single tool is truly indispensable)

LinkedIn Learning (home to Jeff's training courses, taken by 5 million-plus learners)
Customer Service Tip of the Week (Jeff's free weekly email with content to share with your team)

Connect with the guest:

Human Service book (download the first chapter free): humanservicebook.com
Customer Service Tip of the Week (free weekly research and tips): toistersolutions.com/tips
Reply directly to any weekly email and it goes straight to Jeff

Follow the show: X @NavigatingCX and join our private Facebook group, Navigating the Customer Experience Community. Hosted by Yanique Grant.

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Where should AI stop and a human step in? Rebecca Stone has spent 20 plus years finding the line.

Rebecca Stone, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer at Plume, joins Yanique Grant to unpack why clean, centralized data is the real foundation of customer experience, and where AI should augment the journey versus where a human relationship has to show up. From the name problem that makes one customer look like four, to using AI to carry context across every support tier, to building high performing teams, Rebecca shares practical moves any leader can use.

In this episode:

- The first move to make when your customer data is messy
- Where AI ends and human connection has to begin
- Using AI to carry customer context across every support tier
- The tools Rebecca can't live without: Claude, Gong, Salesforce, Marketo
- Building high performing teams with The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
- The Colin Powell quote that keeps her on track

Featured resources:

Book: Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Book: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
Claude (AI for building presentations and freeing up time)
Gong (conversation intelligence and customer context)
Salesforce (CRM and customer data)
Marketo (marketing automation)

Connect with the guest:

LinkedIn: Rebecca Stone, connect and send her a message
Company: Plume

Follow the show: X @NavigatingCX and join our private Facebook group, Navigating the Customer Experience Community. Hosted by Yanique Grant.

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What if the fastest way to lead change was to stop trying to feel confident? Executive coach Terez Rijkenberg says clarity beats confidence every time, and she has the frameworks to prove it.

Terez Rijkenberg, executive coach to C-suite leaders and director at Tuitive AI, joins Yanique Grant to share the two frameworks behind her work: the RAFT formula (results, actions, feelings, thoughts) and Radical Adaptability. She unpacks how change really happens, how she coaches leaders through it with a real client story, and how her Claude-based AI system hands executives back 10-plus hours a week. She also shares the grounding quote she uses when stress spikes.

In this episode:

- Terez's journey from the corporate ladder through postpartum depression and identity shift to executive coaching
- The RAFT formula: why your thoughts drive your feelings, actions, and ultimately your results
- Radical Adaptability: safety, clarity, belief, experiment, and integrate, the five steps of real change
- A client story showing why coaching a team is faster than telling them what to do
- Before and after: building AI workflows that remove manual work and free leaders to think
- The grounding self-talk Terez uses under pressure: this is not an emergency

Featured resources:

Book: The Success Principles by Jack Canfield
Book: The Freakonomics series by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (her gateway into behavioral economics and psychology)
Claude (Anthropic) - where Terez builds her processes, systems, and personalized client dashboards
AI Amplified Exec - her Claude plugin that turns spreadsheets, transcripts, and documents into branded outputs like board packs in minutes
Tuitive AI - where Terez is director and built AI Amplified Exec, helping senior executives use AI safely for real gains in personal productivity.

Connect with the guest:
Website: terezrijkenberg.com
Weekly email / blog: terezrijkenberg.com/blog
LinkedIn: Terez Rijkenberg (most active here)

Follow the show: X @NavigatingCX and join our private Facebook group, Navigating the Customer Experience Community. Hosted by Yanique Grant.

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Can AI answer your customers without pushing them away? David Karandish has automated support for 20,000 companies, and he says deflection should make the experience better, not worse.

David Karandish, founder and CEO of Capacity, joins Yanique Grant to unpack how to bring AI into customer support the right way. After selling Answers Corp for $960 million, David built Capacity into an omni-channel support automation platform serving roughly 20,000 customers. In this episode he shares the design principles that keep automation human, why your first AI project should be a small, provable win, and how AI agents are now running entire companies from finance to marketing.

In this episode:

- The design principles that make AI deflection improve the customer experience instead of frustrating people, from great escalation paths to leading with empathy
- Why human behavior is largely universal across regions, and where support questions actually differ
- What the $960M Answers.com journey taught David about people who are truly stuck and have nowhere to turn
- The single most practical first step for any support leader: go get your small win, then iterate
- How builder agents let a complete novice spin up workflows, integrations, and CSAT surveys just by asking

Featured resources:

Book: Principles by Ray Dalio — a first-principles breakdown of how Dalio built one of the most successful investment firms of all time.
Foundational AI models — Google Gemini, OpenAI, and Anthropic's Claude, used across the business.
Jira — for tracking development tickets; David uses LLMs to analyze time-in-stage when off-the-shelf plugins fall short.
Capacity — an AI-powered support automation platform that deflects emails, calls, and tickets across voice, SMS, WhatsApp, web, and email. ~20,000 customers, 250+ app integrations.

Connect with the guest:
Website: capacity.com
Email: david@capacity.com

Follow the show: X @NavigatingCX and join our private Facebook group, Navigating the Customer Experience Community. Hosted by Yanique Grant.

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What if the most valuable thing a customer could do for your business was complain? In this episode of Navigating the Customer Experience, Yanique Grant sits down with Michael Podolsky, co-founder and CEO of PissedConsumer.com and Wisebrand.com, to explore the power of negative feedback and why organizations that take it seriously are the ones that build lasting customer loyalty.

Michael built PissedConsumer.com after a deeply frustrating personal experience as a customer left him with no recourse and no resolution. Starting with just $200 and no venture backing, he has grown the platform over the past 20 years into a consumer advocacy powerhouse serving over 30 million users. His message to businesses is consistent: complaints are not your enemy. They are your most honest source of business intelligence.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE

87% of consumers contact a company directly before leaving a negative review online. That statistic sits at the heart of everything Michael teaches. By the time a review is posted, the customer has already tried to reach you. The review is not the problem. The missed connection is.

In this conversation, Yanique and Michael explore how organizations of all sizes can shift the way they receive and respond to consumer feedback, including how to categorize complaints by severity, how to establish timelines for resolution, and why the department most often blamed for service failures is rarely the one responsible for causing them.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

From a Bad Vacation to 30 Million Users
Michael shares the origin story behind PissedConsumer.com, which was born from a travel experience that left him with no recourse as a consumer. That frustration became the foundation for one of the largest negative review platforms in the world.

Collective Complaints: A New Way to Get Businesses to Respond
PissedConsumer.com recently introduced a collective complaint feature that groups consumer feedback around a single issue and gathers signatures to amplify the message. Companies that routinely ignore individual complaints have begun responding to collective ones.

Complaints as Small Gifts
72% of consumers who leave negative reviews are trying to protect future customers from the same experience. They want things to improve. Michael's position is that every complaint is a gift, and businesses that receive it that way build stronger relationships than those that deflect or dismiss.

Customer Service Is Not a Deflection Mechanism
Michael addresses one of the most common and costly mistakes in large organizations: treating customer service as a buffer designed to keep consumers away from the business rather than a function empowered to fix the actual problem. When customer service has real authority and clear escalation paths, the feedback loop works.

Empowering Your Team with AI
Michael shares how his organizations have deployed agentic AI systems using multiple models across departments including recruitment, operations, marketing, and deep research. His belief is that business leaders must integrate AI and human institutional knowledge now, not later.

The Last Generation to Manage Only Human Teams
Perhaps the most thought-provoking moment in the conversation comes when Michael reflects on where AI is taking the workforce. His message to his own employees: in nine months, the company will either need 70% fewer people or will be ten times more productive. Every single person chose productivity.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

Getting Past No by William Ury. Michael has carried this book on negotiation and conflict resolution for over 40 years. For anyone who deals with difficult customers, challenging conversations, or resistant stakeholders, this is the read he points to first.

CONNECT WITH MICHAEL PODOLSKY

LinkedIn: Search Michael Podolsky, PissedConsumer
Website: pissedconsumer.com
Website: wisebrand.com

FOLLOW NAVIGATING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

X (Twitter): @NavigatingCX
Facebook: Navigating the Customer Experience Community
LinkedIn: Yanique Grant
Website: yaniquegrant.com