Neal Topf is proud, and a little bit fanboying, to welcome back to the podcast the esteemed author Annette Franz. Following on from the success of Annette's first book, "Customer Understanding", Annette's second book, "Built To Win", promises to reshape how companies and individuals look at employee experience and the difference between customer-centric vs customer focus. Annette takes Neal on a whirlwind tour of the book, she touches on the 10 principles that help change the culture, why changing culture is hard and how can you measure culture. We also get to hear a bit about what drives ..read more

Happy New Year to all our listeners at Fireside Chats Without The Fires, and thank you all for the support for the podcast. As we enter our second year (yes, second!!), we are amazed to be starting the year with a simply outstanding guest. Adrian Swinscoe, the author of Punk CX, joins Neal to talk about his latest book, Punk XL.  Punk XL does the entire CX community a solid by creating this creative masterpiece (yes, masterpiece) of tracks that make us think/re-think how we set our customer-facing organizations up to succeed. Ever heard of rEcIpe? HIPPO? Proto-WTF-col? Each of these expla ..read more

Amanda Malach joins Neal Topf on today’s episode of #spotlightonthebusinessofcx. In the limited podcast series, Fireside side chats without the fires brings together thought leaders and experts from the world of investment and finance to share their knowledge on how important it is to align any CX projects to the company’s bottom-line. Amanda Malach is one such expert. She shares her thoughts on how you can make the CFO your BFF. Through some simple to use strategies that anyone can put in place today, Amanda demonstrates what are CFO’s looking for when it comes to CX. Amanda shares what annoy ..read more

David Koning and Robert Bamberger from Baird are back from a third episode focusing on the business side of CX. Hosted by Neal Topf, the limited podcast series aims to bring a clearer understanding of the impacts that positive CX has on business, from an investment and financial standpoint. On this episode, David and Robert talk about the insights from Bairds Q3 survey results about 2022 in the BPO space, and the potential impact that wage inflation may have on pricing. They also discuss the performance of TaskUs, TELUS and Accenture, and how these three companies are bucking the trend and sho ..read more

Jessica Noble, MBA, CCXP, a long-time friend and supporter of Fireside Chats Without The Fires, joins Neal Topf today’s episode of “Spotlight on The Business Of CX”. In this limited series of podcasts, Neal is joined by CX experts who look at how CX impacts the bottom line. Today, Jess and Neal talk candidly about a myriad of different topics related to this area. Some of the questions that they answer include Is CX at a crisis point right now?, should businesses be focusing on niceness right now? and is does the person who is leading your CX have a strong business acumen? If not, is that real ..read more

Prof. Dr. Phil Klaus from the International University of Monaco is today's guest on the podcast.    Prof. Dr. Phil Klaus joins Neal to talk about his recently published article "What matters most to ultra-high-net-worth individuals?" The article, which is included on this link, explores what really does matter to those individuals who have everything? Do they have the same wants and needs as us mere mortals?   Dr. Klaus, with a passion that is very seldom seen, answers the above question, and more, in today's podcast. He explains what really matters to the uber-rich, why it mat ..read more

Fireside Chats Without the Fires is thrilled to welcome back to the podcast, the talented Jessica Noble to talk about her chapter from the CX 3 book, “It Depends Trap”. Jessica chats to Neal about how a cooperate event several years ago highlighted an issue of inconsistency, or, as Jessica likes to call it, “It Depends Trap”. The Trap, as Jessica tells it, is when a customer receives poor experience because they “called in on a Monday”, therefore, IT DEPENDS when a customer calls in to receive good experience. Hear from Jessica about tackling “It Depends Trap” can have a positive impact on cus ..read more

David Wales, author the chapter “Seeing Through the Smoke” from the CX3 book, is the guest on the podcast.  David’s fire service background may not be one that people usually associate with customer experience, however, as he explains to Neal, his experience in this field has given David and unique view into CX. David shares how the Fire Service is learning to include cx in their roles, and that there is a place for voice of the customer, honestly, who would have thought that? Through his stories, David shines a light on how, on occasion, what we think people will do vs what they will act ..read more

Adrian Swinscoe, the author of PUNK CX, is today’s guest on the podcast. Adrian shines a light on the backstory of the PUNK CX book, and how, over a few drinks in a bar, the idea came to him. He passionately explains what being a CX Punk in today’s CX World means and why it’s important to “shake the tree”. Adrian is very clear that the book is not the answer is all the challenges that exist within CX today, more so that the whole premise of the book is to encourage people to do better work. As Adrian puts it, “Following the crowd won’t get you to number 1. Are you an a ..read more

To support the upcoming SOCAP Emerging Horizons Event, Fireside Chats Without The Fires (the official podcast for the event), is very proud to have the amazing Waldo Waldman on the show to talk to Neal.   Waldo briefly explains what people can expect from his keynote speech at the event, also, he explains what being a fighter pilot taught him about CX as well as explaining what CX means to him. This you will want to hear!   https://www.linkedin.com/in/waldowaldman/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/socap/ https://www.socap.org/events-education/event/2021/10/17 ..read more