Most companies are rushing to layer AI onto customer operations without fixing what sits underneath. Deb Ashton of Certinia says that's the wrong order. When sales, delivery, finance, and customer success work from separate systems with different views of the same customer, AI doesn't close those gaps; it amplifies them. Clients feel the disconnect as friction: repeating themselves across departments, getting inconsistent answers, and slowly losing trust.

What You Will Learn

• Why adding AI to customer support fails when your sales, finance, and delivery systems do not share customer data, and what customers experience when they do not
• The three layers of trust that determine whether clients renew, and which one AI cannot replace
• Where AI actually protects revenue in your business versus where it erodes customer relationships
• The difference between "human in the loop" and "human on the loop," and when to use each one with AI workflows
• Why metrics like NPS and renewal rates hide the real problem with your AI implementation until the customer has already left
• How to identify which administrative work should be automated and which customer-facing decisions need human judgment before execution
• What to do when your customer success manager cannot answer basic questions about a contract, and why that moment determines whether you keep or lose the customer

This episode is brought to you in partnership with Certinia.

Certinia is a professional services platform built natively on Salesforce that connects the full services lifecycle — sales, delivery, financials, forecasting, staffing, and project management — on a single data layer, so every team works from the same view of the customer, and AI can act with certainty. Learn more at Certinia.com.

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What does it take to create extraordinary experiences that make customers happier and tell others?

Stacy Sherman and featured guest Mark Sanborn reveals proven principles to consistently deliver positive emotion and go beyond the ordinary. You'll learn the 4 principles from his book, "The Fred Factor" focussed on a real-life postal carrier who made a difference. You'll discover how to reinvent, build relationships, and add value without spending more. And, some of the best advice about leadership, customer experience, and succeeding in the age of AI.

What You Will Learn

• Ask your team a version of the Sanborn question after key transactions: "Are you happier you chose us than a competitor?" Use the responses to identify specific moments where the answer is no.
• Direct training budget toward frontline employees, since customers interact with delivery drivers, support agents, and reception staff far more often than they interact with executives.
• Give employees permission to add a small, no-cost gesture at one point in the customer journey, similar to the pizza driver who asks to give a child a piece of candy at the door.
• Set a rule for AI use on your team: AI drafts content, but a person still asks the original question, checks the output for accuracy, and carries out the final action.
• Write down, in one sentence, what your team is trying to accomplish this quarter, then ask five employees the same question and compare the answers.

Have a question or thoughts to share? Leave a voice message: https://www.speakpipe.com/StacySherman

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Most companies view their customer service team as a cost to reduce. Lisa Oswald at TravelZoo says that is precisely the wrong instinct. When you see the people who communicate with customers all day as an expense, you stop understanding why customers are dissatisfied, continue doing what frustrates them, and lose their business without ever realizing the real reason. By the time it appears in your data, the customer is already gone.

So what separates the companies that keep their customers, grow their revenue, and earn the budget to do more from the ones that keep losing both? You've come to the right place for answers.

This episode is for any leader who is tired of fighting for a budget and wants to make a case that their boss actually says yes to.

What You'll Learn:

• Why CSAT and NPS get a polite nod in the boardroom, and which three specific numbers make finance actually approve budget
• Whether your customers would miss you or just miss your price, and why that gap is where you lose revenue
• The gap between saying "it's my responsibility" and feeling "I own this outcome," and why only one stops churn
• Why attaching a name to every survey question turns feedback into action, and what happens when you don't
• How a 30-year-old bus tour still explains why companies lose customers without knowing the real reason
• Why contact center AI delivers measurable returns in weeks, creating the data service leaders need to secure larger CX budgets
• What emotion customers feel at each stage that predicts whether they'll stay or leave, and where most companies stop looking

Have a question or thoughts to share? Leave a voice message: https://www.speakpipe.com/StacySherman

Learn more at DoingCXRight.com and subscribe to the newsletter for more actionable strategies.