Dive into the rapidly evolving world of AI with Adrian Swinscoe as we wrap up our three-part series on how to keep AI from becoming just another buzzword. This episode unpacks the flood of AI tools hitting the market, the challenge of maintaining a human touch in customer experience, and strategies to avoid the dreaded “tech for tech’s sake” trap. Adrian shares a fresh perspective on leveraging AI for operational efficiency—not by cutting costs but by unlocking capacity to deepen customer relationships. We also touch on often-overlooked ethical considerations, from AI’s environmental impact to the human labor hidden behind the scenes.In this episode of the customer success playbook, Adrian Swinscoe expertly navigates the AI hype cycle, reminding us that technology should never lead the charge without a clear strategy rooted in customer experience goals. Adrian advocates flipping the traditional tech-first approach on its head—start with the experience you want to create, then work backward to the data and technology needed. This disciplined mindset steers organizations away from buying shiny tools with no purpose and towards a deliberate, ROI-driven deployment of AI.What stands out is Adrian’s practical example of a forward-thinking e-commerce company that uses AI automation to free their agents from mundane inquiries. Instead of using this newfound efficiency to reduce headcount, they activate new channels to deepen direct customer interactions. This mindset flips the usual script focused on cost-cutting, proving that AI can be a genuine enabler of enriched customer success rather than a simple productivity hack.The episode also ventures into the less glamorous but crucial topics rarely discussed: the hefty energy consumption demanded by AI’s generative models and the ethical conundrum surrounding low-paid labor involved in data annotation. These insights serve as an important reminder that innovation must marry responsibility, aligning with broader business values and the global climate imperative.For customer success leaders, the takeaways are clear: educating teams on the art of the possible with AI, defining an experience-first strategy, and thoughtfully measuring impact are essential steps to harness AI’s power effectively. Above all, there’s a call to maintain the human element—after all, let’s not trade genuine connection for robotic efficiency. Now you can interact with us directly by leaving a voice message at https://www.speakpipe.com/CustomerSuccessPlaybook
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Customer success.
Hi everyone.
Welcome back to the CustomerSuccess Playbook podcast.
I'm your host, Roman Reon.
Kevin Metzker, my cohost, stillnot with us.
I don't know where he is at, uh,where he is at.
We'll, we'll, uh, we'll, we'll,we have a word on the street.
We're trying to find him, but weare wrapping up our, our three
(00:26):
part series with Adrian Skoe,and today we're gonna explore
how to keep AI from becomingjust another buzzword, right?
We've hear so much of a ai, butthat is not just become a
buzzword.
So.
Adrian, uh, let's start here.
AI tools are flooding themarket.
I just met with a, um, one ofour partners yesterday, they
were talking about the GartnerMagic Quadrant box, and they
(00:47):
said there were like 60 some newAI tools in this one box.
And they're, you know, just, it,it's, it's overwhelming, right?
Um, but as these tools flood themarket, you know, self-service
and personalization are, are,are to the forefront.
But how, how do companies ensurethese tools feel human instead
of generic?
How do they make sure they getoperational efficiency without
(01:10):
losing that, that, that, thatcustomer experience?
And, and how can businesses, Imean, I know I'm asking you
three questions in one here, buthow do you avoid tech for, for
tech's.
Adrian Swinscoe (01:20):
So I think the last point is a really important
one because I think what we, thetech protect sake thing is we
see a lot of that, you know, itis like this, this range of kind
of like, uh, like hype waves.
You know, if you kinda go backsort of like five years, it's
like in 2020 the pandemic, itwas chatbots, right?
And then I think it was possiblyblockchain and then it was the
(01:40):
Metaverse, and then it wascongenitally and then it's
Geogen ai and it's like, it,it's these series of waves.
And I think that the.
So technology's moving fast.
That's that, that, that's true.
But we shouldn't just be buyingtechnology, like thinking it is
a spanner and thinking about,oh, where can I apply it?
As it were.
I think here's the thing that weneed to do, is we need to.
(02:03):
Educate ourselves on, on the artof the possible.
So we need to kinda likebasically upscale ourselves in
terms of understanding what thistechnology is and what it can
do.
But then rather than actuallystarting from a tech perspective
and thinking about whatexperience that we can deliver.
And so you buy the tool and thenthink about what you can do with
it.
We actually need to kind of likeeducate ourselves on what the
art of the possible is, and thenstart, then imagine what is it
(02:25):
that we want to create.
And why?
And then work backwards fromthere in terms of what is the
tech and what is the data thatwe need to in order to, to
fulfill that now.
Because if you do that, thenyou're gonna get a better idea
of what you're working towardsand that gives you a bit more of
a, uh, of an insight and whatsort of tools you need to employ
in order to achieve thatexperience.
Right now, I think we're workingfrom a tech data and experience
(02:48):
kind of perspective whereactually we should work on the
flip is like start from anexperience, data and sort of
tech.
Perspective.
And if we do that, we'll alsoget a better idea of one, having
a strategy of what we wanna do,'cause it and leads, it'll lead
us towards our kinda likevision.
But by doing that, we can alsokinda start getting greater
clarity of how do we deliver ROIout of some of the, our
(03:09):
initiatives.
Because otherwise it's, it'slike, oh, well buy this and then
things will get better.
No, let's kind of like.
Be deliberate about what we'regonna do, what's our vision,
what's our strategy to try andachieve that?
What, what tools and things arewe're gonna, uh, um, employ to
in order to, to do that.
And then we can think about,okay, how does that tie to the
enablement and achievement ofour business and commercial
(03:30):
objectives, which will then helpus deliver kind of ROI.
Uh, love
it.
So I, I know you're all over CXand, and, and you're talking to
tons of organizations andobviously you're a consumer and
customer yourself.
For you, Adrian, what's acompany that's doing AI right
from, from a CX perspective?
I, so there a lot of people talk about
operational efficiency, right?
(03:51):
And their productivity gains.
But I actually think what'sinteresting about this, these
new, new version of technologiesis it gives us choice if you do
it right, it gives us choice.
And one of the best examplesI've heard of a company that is
leveraging some of these toolswas, I think they're an
e-commerce company and they'veused AI and automation to, to,
(04:11):
to free up a lot of their agentsfrom doing some of the simpler
tasks.
So.
The large percentage of thesimple inquiries are all
automated through either througha chat bot or through an a, you
know, an automatic answer engineor, or whatever it might be, and
that's freed up all sorts oftime for their agents.
Now, some people might go,great, we can reduce headcount,
or we can redeploy people intoother parts of parts of the, the
(04:33):
business.
They're like going, no, butthat's not aligned with our
brand.
Actually, what we want to do iswe want to.
You know, we are, we've alwaysbeen customer first and actually
what they, they've chosenwithout additional capacity.
They've chosen to turn thephones on.
Because they, they've never beenable to do that before.
'cause they didn't have thebandwidth to do it.
(04:54):
So they're just for a brand.
Okay.
We're we're just chat and emailand messaging and social media
sort of thing because that tookup all their time.
They didn't have the time toturn the phones on.
But now because they'veautomated a whole bunch of stuff
and free up a bunch of space,they're like going, let's turn
the phones on, then we can talkto customers, solve more complex
problems, kind of get to knowthem a bit better, build
relationships with them.
And I think that's a brilliantkinda like way because it's
(05:16):
actually not necessarily thenormal thing.
That you would expect or not,that's not part of the normal
narrative that's going aroundthe, around the industry.
So that's what I mean abouthaving that vision about what
you wanna do and a strategy toachieve it.
'cause understand that withinthat you have choice.
It will give you choice if doneright.
And then it's up to you todecide what you want to do with
(05:36):
that, that, that, that extracapacity that you're gonna free
up.
Yeah.
I love it.
That's completely, uh, I, I lovethat example because that's the
opposite of what I typicallyhear.
Right.
And, and it's reduced, reduce.
Reduce, and then.
Yes, you saved some money, butyou've created friction other
places and, and you know, it'stough.
It's tough.
Uh, I love it.
Um, so la well last questionhere on ai.
(05:59):
Um, any kind of, from yourexperience, like any ethical
considerations that you think weshould be talking about more
with it?
Uh, you know, I don't, we don'tget into this a whole bunch,
Adrian, but I'd love to hearyour perspective.
I think there's two things I would say.
First of all, I would say thatwe're not talking enough about
the energy consumption needed topower generative models and just
general AI in, in general acrossthe, you know, the, the tech
(06:20):
space.
Yeah.
That's a big deal.
People are talking aboutbuilding nuclear plants to power
some of these data, these datacenters and, and then going up
at a rate and it's this bitlike, wow, that's crazy.
Um, I think.
That, that's based on where weare right now.
I think the, we've sold withpeople like Deep Seek that have
(06:41):
been able to do some, do somethings differently on the
engineering side and thealgorithmic side, which means
that the energy consumption is,is much kinda lowered, but
broadly, energy consumption is,is a big deal that we need to
think about, particularly whenwe think about the, the broader
context that we're about climatechange and things.
That's kinda the one thing.
And the second thing, um, wedon't talk about.
(07:02):
A lot.
We actually don't, don't think,we don't talk, talk about it at
all.
And, and that is a lot of thelow paid labor that goes into
data annotation, much of whichis, uh, located in the global
south.
So we get all this stuff and allthis power and this technology
and stuff, but it's relies on.
Possibly a lot of exploitation.
(07:23):
I'm glad.
Thanks for bringing both thoseup.
Uh, you, those are definitelyones that you don't hear hardly
anything about.
Right.
Uh, and, and, and, anddefinitely huge, huge impacts
on, on, on our world.
So, uh, Adrian, thanks so muchfor joining us.
I really enjoyed getting to talkto you here and, and learning
more from you.
This has been terrific.
I gotta ask before we go, yougot a favorite punk band?
Uh, I have two.
(07:44):
Two.
All right.
Um, Fugazi.
Fugazi.
Yeah.
And
Bad religion.
Uh, bad religion.
All right.
Well, awesome, ju I, I, I'veloved it so much.
There is a 99.4% chance I'lllisten to God save the Queen
from, uh, the Sex Pistols today.
I know that'll be on my playlistat some point.
Uh, but, uh.
Adrian.
Brilliant stuff.
I really enjoy, uh, having youon the show to our audience.
(08:07):
Definitely check out Adrian'sbooks.
Uh, you can find them.
Uh, Adrian.
Where can we, I'll let you,where can our audience best find
your books?
Where do you wanna direct'em?
Uh, I mean.
I'm just look me up.
It's like Adrian Scoe, you know,S-W-I-N-S-C-O-E.
Look me up on the, uh, orwhether it's Amazon or the
internet, you'll find mywebsite.
(08:27):
You'll find me on LinkedIn.
You'll find me on the pod.
If I'm the me on the Punk CXpodcast, do that and hit links
or subscribe or buy a book orwhatever it might be.
Or send me a message kind oflike, and just to say hi, and
then, you know, that's all good.
That's awesome.
We'll definitely check him out.
I was gonna say, I was gonna sayAmazon because I know when I,
when I pull you up, Amazon's thefirst thing that pulled up, but
I wasn't sure if that's the bestplace.
But you're on there.
(08:47):
You'll find them.
Grab the book.
Terrific stuff.
So that's the end of our threepart series to our audience.
We really appreciate, appreciateyou listening.
Make sure you, uh, if you likethe show, subscribe, rate it,
share it with your friends andcolleagues.
You can connect with, uh, Adrianon LinkedIn.
Adrian's on LinkedIn.
So reach out to Adrian onLinkedIn, like again, check out
his website.
Uh, myself, I'm on LinkedIn atRoman Trevon.
(09:09):
Ping me, reach out.
Let us know what you liked onthe show.
Guests you'd like to have us ontopics, et cetera.
We're always happy to connect.
Uh, Kevin, who wasn't able tojoin us, Kevin Metzker you, he's
on LinkedIn at Kevin Metzker andthen our Customer Success
Playbook page on LinkedIn aswell.
Check that out.
You'll see upcoming shows,clips, what's happening on the
show, et cetera, and we'll hawe'll be back with more
(09:30):
strategies for your customersuccess playbook.
Until next time, audience, keepon playing.
Customer success.
Hi everyone.
Welcome back to the CustomerSuccess Playbook podcast.
I'm your host, Roman Reon.
Kevin Metzker, my cohost, stillnot with us.
I don't know where he is at, uh,where he is at.
We'll, we'll, uh, we'll, we'll,we have a word on the street.
We're trying to find him, but weare wrapping up our, our three
(00:26):
part series with Adrian Skoe,and today we're gonna explore
how to keep AI from becomingjust another buzzword, right?
We've hear so much of a ai, butthat is not just become a
buzzword.
So.
Adrian, uh, let's start here.
AI tools are flooding themarket.
I just met with a, um, one ofour partners yesterday, they
were talking about the GartnerMagic Quadrant box, and they
(00:47):
said there were like 60 some newAI tools in this one box.
And they're, you know, just, it,it's, it's overwhelming, right?
Um, but as these tools flood themarket, you know, self-service
and personalization are, are,are to the forefront.
But how, how do companies ensurethese tools feel human instead
of generic?
How do they make sure they getoperational efficiency without
(01:10):
losing that, that, that, thatcustomer experience?
And, and how can businesses, Imean, I know I'm asking you
three questions in one here, buthow do you avoid tech for, for
tech's.
Adrian Swinscoe (01:20):
So I think the last point is a really important
one because I think what we, thetech protect sake thing is we
see a lot of that, you know, itis like this, this range of kind
of like, uh, like hype waves.
You know, if you kinda go backsort of like five years, it's
like in 2020 the pandemic, itwas chatbots, right?
And then I think it was possiblyblockchain and then it was the
(01:40):
Metaverse, and then it wascongenitally and then it's
Geogen ai and it's like, it,it's these series of waves.
And I think that the.
So technology's moving fast.
That's that, that, that's true.
But we shouldn't just be buyingtechnology, like thinking it is
a spanner and thinking about,oh, where can I apply it?
As it were.
I think here's the thing that weneed to do, is we need to.
(02:03):
Educate ourselves on, on the artof the possible.
So we need to kinda likebasically upscale ourselves in
terms of understanding what thistechnology is and what it can
do.
But then rather than actuallystarting from a tech perspective
and thinking about whatexperience that we can deliver.
And so you buy the tool and thenthink about what you can do with
it.
We actually need to kind of likeeducate ourselves on what the
art of the possible is, and thenstart, then imagine what is it
(02:25):
that we want to create.
And why?
And then work backwards fromthere in terms of what is the
tech and what is the data thatwe need to in order to, to
fulfill that now.
Because if you do that, thenyou're gonna get a better idea
of what you're working towardsand that gives you a bit more of
a, uh, of an insight and whatsort of tools you need to employ
in order to achieve thatexperience.
Right now, I think we're workingfrom a tech data and experience
(02:48):
kind of perspective whereactually we should work on the
flip is like start from anexperience, data and sort of
tech.
Perspective.
And if we do that, we'll alsoget a better idea of one, having
a strategy of what we wanna do,'cause it and leads, it'll lead
us towards our kinda likevision.
But by doing that, we can alsokinda start getting greater
clarity of how do we deliver ROIout of some of the, our
(03:09):
initiatives.
Because otherwise it's, it'slike, oh, well buy this and then
things will get better.
No, let's kind of like.
Be deliberate about what we'regonna do, what's our vision,
what's our strategy to try andachieve that?
What, what tools and things arewe're gonna, uh, um, employ to
in order to, to do that.
And then we can think about,okay, how does that tie to the
enablement and achievement ofour business and commercial
(03:30):
objectives, which will then helpus deliver kind of ROI.
Uh, love
it.
So I, I know you're all over CXand, and, and you're talking to
tons of organizations andobviously you're a consumer and
customer yourself.
For you, Adrian, what's acompany that's doing AI right
from, from a CX perspective?
I, so there a lot of people talk about
operational efficiency, right?
(03:51):
And their productivity gains.
But I actually think what'sinteresting about this, these
new, new version of technologiesis it gives us choice if you do
it right, it gives us choice.
And one of the best examplesI've heard of a company that is
leveraging some of these toolswas, I think they're an
e-commerce company and they'veused AI and automation to, to,
(04:11):
to free up a lot of their agentsfrom doing some of the simpler
tasks.
So.
The large percentage of thesimple inquiries are all
automated through either througha chat bot or through an a, you
know, an automatic answer engineor, or whatever it might be, and
that's freed up all sorts oftime for their agents.
Now, some people might go,great, we can reduce headcount,
or we can redeploy people intoother parts of parts of the, the
(04:33):
business.
They're like going, no, butthat's not aligned with our
brand.
Actually, what we want to do iswe want to.
You know, we are, we've alwaysbeen customer first and actually
what they, they've chosenwithout additional capacity.
They've chosen to turn thephones on.
Because they, they've never beenable to do that before.
'cause they didn't have thebandwidth to do it.
(04:54):
So they're just for a brand.
Okay.
We're we're just chat and emailand messaging and social media
sort of thing because that tookup all their time.
They didn't have the time toturn the phones on.
But now because they'veautomated a whole bunch of stuff
and free up a bunch of space,they're like going, let's turn
the phones on, then we can talkto customers, solve more complex
problems, kind of get to knowthem a bit better, build
relationships with them.
And I think that's a brilliantkinda like way because it's
(05:16):
actually not necessarily thenormal thing.
That you would expect or not,that's not part of the normal
narrative that's going aroundthe, around the industry.
So that's what I mean abouthaving that vision about what
you wanna do and a strategy toachieve it.
'cause understand that withinthat you have choice.
It will give you choice if doneright.
And then it's up to you todecide what you want to do with
(05:36):
that, that, that, that extracapacity that you're gonna free
up.
Yeah.
I love it.
That's completely, uh, I, I lovethat example because that's the
opposite of what I typicallyhear.
Right.
And, and it's reduced, reduce.
Reduce, and then.
Yes, you saved some money, butyou've created friction other
places and, and you know, it'stough.
It's tough.
Uh, I love it.
Um, so la well last questionhere on ai.
(05:59):
Um, any kind of, from yourexperience, like any ethical
considerations that you think weshould be talking about more
with it?
Uh, you know, I don't, we don'tget into this a whole bunch,
Adrian, but I'd love to hearyour perspective.
I think there's two things I would say.
First of all, I would say thatwe're not talking enough about
the energy consumption needed topower generative models and just
general AI in, in general acrossthe, you know, the, the tech
(06:20):
space.
Yeah.
That's a big deal.
People are talking aboutbuilding nuclear plants to power
some of these data, these datacenters and, and then going up
at a rate and it's this bitlike, wow, that's crazy.
Um, I think.
That, that's based on where weare right now.
I think the, we've sold withpeople like Deep Seek that have
(06:41):
been able to do some, do somethings differently on the
engineering side and thealgorithmic side, which means
that the energy consumption is,is much kinda lowered, but
broadly, energy consumption is,is a big deal that we need to
think about, particularly whenwe think about the, the broader
context that we're about climatechange and things.
That's kinda the one thing.
And the second thing, um, wedon't talk about.
(07:02):
A lot.
We actually don't, don't think,we don't talk, talk about it at
all.
And, and that is a lot of thelow paid labor that goes into
data annotation, much of whichis, uh, located in the global
south.
So we get all this stuff and allthis power and this technology
and stuff, but it's relies on.
Possibly a lot of exploitation.
(07:23):
I'm glad.
Thanks for bringing both thoseup.
Uh, you, those are definitelyones that you don't hear hardly
anything about.
Right.
Uh, and, and, and, anddefinitely huge, huge impacts
on, on, on our world.
So, uh, Adrian, thanks so muchfor joining us.
I really enjoyed getting to talkto you here and, and learning
more from you.
This has been terrific.
I gotta ask before we go, yougot a favorite punk band?
Uh, I have two.
(07:44):
Two.
All right.
Um, Fugazi.
Fugazi.
Yeah.
And
Bad religion.
Uh, bad religion.
All right.
Well, awesome, ju I, I, I'veloved it so much.
There is a 99.4% chance I'lllisten to God save the Queen
from, uh, the Sex Pistols today.
I know that'll be on my playlistat some point.
Uh, but, uh.
Adrian.
Brilliant stuff.
I really enjoy, uh, having youon the show to our audience.
(08:07):
Definitely check out Adrian'sbooks.
Uh, you can find them.
Uh, Adrian.
Where can we, I'll let you,where can our audience best find
your books?
Where do you wanna direct'em?
Uh, I mean.
I'm just look me up.
It's like Adrian Scoe, you know,S-W-I-N-S-C-O-E.
Look me up on the, uh, orwhether it's Amazon or the
internet, you'll find mywebsite.
(08:27):
You'll find me on LinkedIn.
You'll find me on the pod.
If I'm the me on the Punk CXpodcast, do that and hit links
or subscribe or buy a book orwhatever it might be.
Or send me a message kind oflike, and just to say hi, and
then, you know, that's all good.
That's awesome.
We'll definitely check him out.
I was gonna say, I was gonna sayAmazon because I know when I,
when I pull you up, Amazon's thefirst thing that pulled up, but
I wasn't sure if that's the bestplace.
But you're on there.
(08:47):
You'll find them.
Grab the book.
Terrific stuff.
So that's the end of our threepart series to our audience.
We really appreciate, appreciateyou listening.
Make sure you, uh, if you likethe show, subscribe, rate it,
share it with your friends andcolleagues.
You can connect with, uh, Adrianon LinkedIn.
Adrian's on LinkedIn.
So reach out to Adrian onLinkedIn, like again, check out
his website.
Uh, myself, I'm on LinkedIn atRoman Trevon.
(09:09):
Ping me, reach out.
Let us know what you liked onthe show.
Guests you'd like to have us ontopics, et cetera.
We're always happy to connect.
Uh, Kevin, who wasn't able tojoin us, Kevin Metzker you, he's
on LinkedIn at Kevin Metzker andthen our Customer Success
Playbook page on LinkedIn aswell.
Check that out.
You'll see upcoming shows,clips, what's happening on the
show, et cetera, and we'll hawe'll be back with more
(09:30):
strategies for your customersuccess playbook.
Until next time, audience, keepon playing.
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