Making Customers Stay Loyal and Come Back Summary: What makes a company the kind of brand customers would actually miss if it disappeared tomorrow? In Episode 247 of the Customer Service Revolution Podcast, Denise Thompson and John DiJulius break down the six drivers that separate forgettable businesses from brands customers stay loyal to: great… Read Full Article
Why the Companies Rushing to Replace People with AI Are Already Reversing Course The Research That Confirms What I’ve Been Saying for Years I’ll be honest — I wasn’t surprised when I read this. But I was glad the data finally caught up. According to new research from Gartner released in February 2026, half of… Read Full Article
How to Create a Successful CX Initiative that Lasts! Summary: Most customer service initiatives do not fail because leaders do not care. They fail because they launch with excitement, then daily operations swallow them whole. In this episode, Denise Thompson and John DiJulius break down the six steps required to build a customer experience initiative… Read Full Article
The Answer Hiding Behind the “Quiet Cracking” Crisis What I’m Seeing in Organizations Right Now I’ve been working with organizations across the country for decades, and what I’m seeing right now is something I’ve never quite encountered at this scale. It’s called “quiet cracking,” and it may already be happening inside your organization — even… Read Full Article
How Invest West Took What They Learned at The Customer Experience Executive Academy and Built a Customer Experience Culture That Sticks Summary: In this episode of the Customer Service Revolution Podcast, Dave Murray talks with CXEA graduates Rebecca Blaisdell and Megan Francis of Invest West about what it really looks like to bring customer experience… Read Full Article
What the fall of one of America’s most beloved retail brands teaches every CEO about culture, identity, and the one thing no restructuring plan can fix. There used to be a joke that only insiders understood. Customers didn’t say they were going to “Target.” They said they were going to “Tarzhay” — the faux-French pronunciation… Read Full Article
Customer Experience Leadership Challenges Solved Summary: What does it really mean to be customer-centric?Where should leaders start if they want to build a culture obsessed with customer experience? In this special mailbag episode of the Customer Service Revolution Podcast, Denise Thompson puts John DiJulius in the hot seat with real questions from leaders about customer… Read Full Article
Why 82% of Employees Feel Lonely at Work, Even When Engagement Scores Look Good. I’ve spent the last three decades working side by side with some of the world’s most admired organizations — Starbucks, The Ritz-Carlton, Chick-fil-A, KeyBank, Lexus — helping them build cultures where both employees and customers genuinely thrive. And in that time,… Read Full Article
Culture vs. Compensation: Why 82% of Managers Are ‘Accidental’ and How It’s Costing You Talent Summary: After decades of working with world-class organizations, we’ve learned something that surprises most leaders: employees don’t leave because of pay—they leave because of how they’re led. In this episode of the Customer Service Revolution podcast, John DiJulius and Denise… Read Full Article
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
