AI That Listens: Why Real-Time Feedback is the Future of Customer Experience

Summary

Traditional customer feedback is broken. Post-call surveys and quarterly reports are too slow, cumbersome, and overly focused on the company’s needs rather than the customer’s reality. By the time insights land on a dashboard, the customer has already left—or worse, lost trust.

In this episode of The Intuitive Customer, I (Colin Shaw) and Professor Ryan Hamilton sit down with Devidas Desai, SVP of Product Leader at ASAPP, to explore how AI that listens is reshaping the way organizations understand and respond to customers in the moment.

We delve into why silence doesn’t mean satisfaction, why feedback must shift from lagging indicators to real-time signals, and how AI can transform agents into superheroes rather than script-readers. Along the way, Devidas shares his bold vision for the “death of dashboards” and why the future is “anti-dashboard.”

If you’ve ever felt trapped in a maddening customer service loop (looking at you, broadband companies), this episode will resonate. More importantly, it will show you what’s possible when organizations finally stop treating feedback as an autopsy and start listening in real time.

Best Quote:

“AI that listens isn’t about replacing humans—it’s about keeping the human in the loop, so customers get both speed and empathy in the same conversation.”

Davidas Desai, SVP, Product Leader at ASAPP

Key Takeaways

• Feedback as Autopsy: Traditional surveys and dashboards give you a post-mortem, not a diagnosis. By the time you act, the damage is done.
  
  

• Silence ≠ Satisfaction: No feedback often means customers have given up on you—not that they’re happy.
  
  

• Real-Time > Real Late: True customer experience happens in moments, not in reporting cycles. AI that listens can capture sentiment, intent, and context as it unfolds.
  
  

• Human in the Loop: AI doesn’t replace humans—it augments them. The best systems blend automation with empathy and judgment.
  
  

• Agent Superpowers: With AI, agents can enter conversations fully briefed, emotionally aware, and guided toward the best next step. Less paperwork, more trust-building.
  
  

• Anti-Dashboard Future: Forget drowning in charts. The next wave is conversational dashboards where you ask questions, and AI gives clear, plain-language answers.
  
  

• Trust is the Endgame: Customers, agents, and leaders all need to trust the system. Real-time listening, done right, rebuilds that trust.
  
  

Resources:

Davidas Desai, SVP, Product Leader at ASAPP - https://www.linkedin.com/in/devidasdesai/

ASAPP

https://www.asapp.com/

 

About the Hosts:

Colin Shaw is a LinkedIn 'Top Voice' with a massive 284,000 followers and 87,000 subscribers to his 'Why Customers Buy' newsletter. Shaw is named one of the world's 'Top 150 Business Influencers' by LinkedIn. His company, Beyond Philosophy LLC, has been selected four times by the Financial Times as a top management consultancy. Shaw is co-host of the top 1.5% podcast 'The Intuitive Customer'—with over 600,000 downloads—and author of eight best-sellers on customer experience, Shaw is a sought-after keynote speaker. Follow Colin on LinkedIn.

 

Ryan Hamilton is a Professor of Marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School and co-author of 'The Intuitive Customer' book. An award-winning teacher and researcher in consumer psychology, he has been named one of Poets & Quants' "World’s Best 40 B-School Profs Under 40." His research focuses on how brands, prices, and choice architecture influence shopper decision-making, and his findings have been published in top academic journals and covered by major media outlets like The New York Times and CNN. His work highlights how psychology can help firms better understand and s