CXetera

Do you even customer, bro? 

A lot of us in CX feel like we end up being the champions of the customer in our orgs, or even the heroes. But that's not a good thing, right? We shouldn't be relying on heroics to make sure that customers have a good experience with us.

The better we are at retaining customers, the better it is for our bottom line (and even our top line, if they expand with us). That's why businesses are obsessed with Net Revenue Retention, Gross Revenue Retention, and churn rates.

S...

No, really, what's up with it? Is it a good thing that our jobs create so much of our purpose in life, our communities, and our sense of worth? Is work becoming a RELIGION? In this episode, you can skip out on Berghain because we've got tickets to the hottest club in town: the CXetera book club. And in this edition, we're sharing our takeaways from the short-but-profound "On Work" by Derek Thompson. He takes a sociological look at why work has come to be such an important part of our identities (at least in America), and how recent...

Are you looking to break into the CX field in SaaS (software as a service) or AI companies? Maybe you're new to the field altogether, or maybe you're trying to enter the tech world from another industry. If so, get ready for a bunch of new terms and assumptions about how things work!

But worry not - Dee and Adam are here to help. We're going to walk you through some of the most common SaaS terms, describe how many SaaS leaders and execs (not to mention their board members!) look at revenue, and talk about the...

How do you know which thought leaders to listen to? How do you approach sharing your own thought leadership? Can one lead with thoughts if one doesn't have a thought with which to lead? What are thoughts?

In this "-etera" episode, we're tackling the deep thoughts around thought leadership. We trace the roots of thought leadership as a marketing strategy and how, with the rise of social media and particularly LinkedIn, the idea of personal branding and expertise have wrapped around each other like some sort of algorithmically driven ourobouros.

Thanks to the rise of...

It's part two of "Dee and Adam go to the CEdMA conference" and this time, we do get White Castle! Or at the very least, we get tasty nuggets of wisdom from Dee based on her experience evolving her team from Customer Education into a Scaled CX organization that includes several programs and channels, including Digital Customer Success. Dee talks about what it means to make this shift, how owning a segment of customers drives clarity and incentives. She shares design principles she's used to build and lead effective organizations, including optionality, data hygiene, digital as a foundational journey...

Alternate title: Adam and Dee go to a conference and do not get White Castle.

In March, Dee and Adam keynoted the CEdMA (Customer Education Management Association) conference in Austin, TX. In this episode, Dee interviews Adam about his keynote presentation. We'll be back with Dee's presentation in the next episode.

Adam's keynote was about Scaled CX ecosystems and what's necessary to make them good. (Spoiler alert: it might have something to do with the unique shape of your business and customer base) Walking through experiences at Optimizely, Checkr, Slack, and Personio, we look at...

Plenty of CSMs see training customers as a core part of their job. But is it, actually? And if it is, should it be?

It's a common headache in customer success: who should actually train customers? Should the customer success team be doing training, or should that be someone else's job? Sometimes customers need technical training, sometimes they just need to learn best practices, and sometimes they don't even know basic processes in their own industry.

The question we're grappling with: When does training become a waste of time for customer success managers, and when...

Let's talk about CX's lunch, and whether AI is going to eat it.

AI is everywhere—but will it replace Customer Experience as we know it? In this episode of CXetera, hosts Adam and Dee dive into the hype and reality of AI’s impact on CX. From AI-powered chatbots to content creation, localization, and support copilots, we break down where AI is truly transforming the industry—and where human expertise is still irreplaceable.

We explore how AI is reshaping roles, the future of scaled CS, and what it means for customer experience teams moving forwar...

It's the first episode of CXetera! So let's start with the big topics. 

Is Customer Success dead? Or is it just evolving? In our debut episode of CXetera, hosts Adam and Dee break down the shifting landscape of CX, the scrutiny around Customer Success, and what the modern CX org should look like. We’ll challenge outdated assumptions, introduce a working model for the future of CX, and explore how these changes impact leaders, teams, and careers in the field. Plus, we’ll share what CXetera is all about—CX, leadership, and the future of work.

Join the...