Anticipating your service defects and having protocols in place to make it right. All employees must have full awareness of the potential common service defects that can arise at each stage of the Customer experience cycle and be trained and empowered to provide great service recovery when defects arise, so your company is known to be zero risk to deal with.
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
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
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
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
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
Customer Experience + AI “As AI gets more efficient and accessible, we will see its use skyrocket,turning it into a commodity.” –Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft Can an interaction with an AI be better than one with a human? Think about that. When I read this in a report titled “The Experience Gap: AI’s Imminent Impact on CX,”… Read Full Article
“…all Americans deserve good service. When folks pick up the phone and ask for help, they shouldn’t have to deal with AI robots or be routed to someone across the world. This bill puts American workers first and ensures people can talk to a real person who understands them when they need help,” said Senator Jim… Read Full Article
A central part of Starbucks’ turnaround strategy—led by CEO Brian Niccol—is a renewed emphasis on human connection between employees and customers, shifting away from a tech-heavy approach. More than five years after introducing mobile-order-only pickup stores, the company is phasing out the concept, citing a lack of the inviting atmosphere it aims to cultivate. Starbucks… Read Full Article
Costco’s strong reputation for customer service likely played a key role in its recent membership surge, adding approximately 5 million new members between 2023 and 2024. As of its fiscal Q2 2025 earnings call in March, total membership surpassed 78 million. Following this growth wave, Costco plans to open 29 new locations in 2025. One… Read Full Article
For over 4 decades, Southwest was an outlier in the US airline industry. They provided great customer service in an industry where it appeared their competitors were fighting to be the worst. Southwest was consistently ranked the #1 airline in domestic customer satisfaction. In our consulting workshops, Southwest was consistently mentioned when asked about what… Read Full Article
