The Industry’s Biggest AI Conference Just Admitted AI Isn’t the Hard Part Anymore

July 14, 2026 | By: John DiJulius
Customer Contact Week 2026 Has Shifted From AI Hype to a Harder Question: How Do You Automate Without Burning Out the Humans Who Are Left? The Industry’s Biggest Stage Just Changed the Conversation Customer Contact Week returns to Las Vegas this month, running June 22 through 25 at Caesars Forum. It bills itself as the... Read Full Article

The Lazy Way Out: Why Your Customer Experience Inconsistency Is a Leadership Problem, Not a People Problem

May 04, 2026 | By: John DiJulius
What Marc Benioff’s Callout of His Fellow CEOs Reveals About Building a Turnkey System for Consistency Marc Benioff Said Something This Week That Every Leader Needs to Hear On April 7th, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff went on record with a take that made headlines across the business world. Speaking about the wave of tech layoffs... Read Full Article

“I Hate AI Chatbots.” — And Why That’s the Best News Your Team Has Heard All Year

April 27, 2026 | By: John DiJulius
How to Inspire Buy-In from Employees Who Think Great Service Doesn’t Matter Anymore Three Words That Dominated Headlines This Week “I hate chatbots.” That was the headline on CNBC’s April 1st story that went viral this past week. And honestly? I wasn’t surprised by a single word of it. I’ve been saying some version of... Read Full Article

Tariffs Are Scaring Your Customers Into Shopping on Price. Here’s How You Win Anyway.

April 13, 2026 | By: John DiJulius

Your Customers Are Scared. What Are You Going to Do About It? I’ve been in the customer experience business for over 25 years. I’ve consulted through recessions, a global pandemic, and more rounds of “unprecedented uncertainty” than I can count. But what’s happening right now, in April 2026, is one of the most important moments… Read Full Article

The Buc-ee’s Paradox: How America’s Cult Convenience Store Earned an “F” While Everyone Still Loves It

April 06, 2026 | By: John DiJulius

When expansion moves faster than your service culture, the cracks always show up in the customer relationship — not the clean restrooms. A look at what Buc-ee’s BBB “F” rating really means, and the five steps every scaling brand must take before it’s too late. ▪ THE NEWS — MARCH 2026 The Better Business Bureau… Read Full Article

Your AI Customer Service Strategy Is Driving Customers Away. Here’s How to Fix It.

March 02, 2026 | By: John DiJulius

The AI customer service backlash isn’t about the technology. It’s about what companies are using it for. Here’s the headline that should terrify every C-suite executive in America: according to a January 2026 Kinsta/Propeller Insights survey of over 1,000 U.S. consumers, 93.4% prefer talking to a human over AI for customer service. Nearly 50% would… Read Full Article

Your Signature Experience Is Not a Perk. It’s the Product

February 17, 2026 | By: John DiJulius

What Every CEO Can Learn from Southwest Airlines Right Now. On January 27, 2026, Southwest Airlines boarded its last open-seating flight. Passengers who had flown Southwest for decades lined up one final time without knowing which seat they would sit in. By the next morning, the airline that had been defined for 53 years by… Read Full Article

The 10 Commandments: Your Complete Operating System for World-Class Customer Experience

February 10, 2026 | By: John DiJulius

How leading brands like Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, and Nestlé use this proven methodology to eliminate inconsistency, reduce customer churn, and build cultures competitors can’t copy. You’ve read the books. Attended the conferences. Highlighted the best practices. Your team is nodding along in agreement. But six months later, nothing has actually changed. Your customer experience is still… Read Full Article

The Advantage No One Can Copy: Making Service Your Ultimate Differentiator

January 20, 2026 | By: John DiJulius

How to build a customer experience strategy that creates competitive advantage through systems competitors can’t duplicate—featuring proven frameworks from companies like Starbucks, KeyBank, and Domino’s. You’ve seen it happen. A competitor launches a new app feature on Monday. By Friday, three others have rolled out something similar. Someone drops their prices, and suddenly everyone’s in… Read Full Article

Are You Getting Enough Customer Complaints? Plus Much More…

December 09, 2025 | By: John DiJulius

KLM Provides Excellent CX to Non-KLM Passengers KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is the national airline of the Netherlands and is renowned for its excellent customer experience. However, you have to fly KLM to experience it. That is why, for one week, KLM decided to help out all travelers, including those who don’t fly with KLM…. Read Full Article