Get inspired by these 5 CX podcasts

This week I decided to review my top 5 podcasts and share them with our MadeFor community. These podcasts reflect on CX in a plethora of ways and present multiple perspectives on the customer experience, as it pertains to the many facets of our lives. They are all easy listening, informative and appeal to many personality types. This shortlist highlights just some of the great content that is out there, but if you don’t know where to start then my top 5 (in no particular order) is for you.

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Techish Podcast

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Abadesi and Michael are young, fresh yet experienced podcasters mixing pop culture with CX. They present in a very causal, anecdotal way that allows you to easily take in CX theories, processes and trends that effect our decision making. In one particular episode they were discussing Rihanna and how well she grasped the concept of inclusivity and how it shaped her business model and strengthened her customer base. This helped her to earn over $150 million dollars in 2020. They discussed the point that Rihanna Savage  X Fenty line superseded the classic Victoria secret range because the Fenty brand understands that the new sexy is not appealing to the male gaze, but feeling positive in the skin you’re in. Fenty struck solid deals to handle e-commerce with Amazon and content creation with Amazon Prime, ensuring an all-round win for the business. I appreciate this podcast for the casual way they implant tid-bits of knowledge throughout the episode and you don’t even realise it until you bring up the topic with someone else.

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Amazing Business Radio

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Amazing Business Radio podcast is hosted by Shep Hyken who is a customer service guru. He also happens to be a New York Times bestselling author. The show welcomes guests from across the customer experience spectrum and they discuss various insights, journeys and solutions. In one of his more recent episodes, he had the author of ‘Listen or Die’ Sean McDade on the show to discuss the benefits of meeting your customer’s needs. They emphasise the various ways that businesses are rewarded every time they met their customer’s needs. They both brought over a combined 40 years of experience to the conversation. Shep’s podcasts generally make you feel like you’re not smartest person in the room and I love it. He has that cool experienced college lecturer vibe that makes you want to sit in the back of the classroom and fervently take notes. My favourite quote from this particular episode was “Great companies do not wait to hear from their customers” which really brought it home that we all need to be proactive when it comes to gaining, retaining and maintaining our customers.

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UX like Us

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UX like us is another American radio style podcast that caters to the needs of the of UXers and is hosted by Roman Bercot and Larry King. This particular podcast stood out to me as I saw a topic on the UX of distance learning. I enjoyed these men and their dry humour talking about their children and their distance learning experience. They highlighted the poor interactivity of the child distance learning experience, and how it has not been handled in the same way workplace distance learning has been handled. The hosts discuss integrating aspects of the learning experience and how many barriers are put in place when using learning portals and online learning materials. They note that there are too many communication points to manage. I found this podcast thought provoking because it made me question “what other ways can Madefor ensure that each learner has the most effective learning experience possible?”. We always think, how can we improve on our processes. However, this podcast made me look at it from another angle. The UX like us podcast explores many topics that end with you thinking “hmm, maybe I could tackle x this way “

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UX of ED Tech

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I recently tuned into a podcast titled Pixar in a Box: How companies and designers can develop their vision for education (X in a Box). It was Hosted by Alicia Quan of UX of Ed Tech (which is now a new addition podcast playlist). The style of this podcast and the zen music in the background while they talk about design thinking and storytelling, made me feel like I was in a yoga class, and was being fed this information subconsciously. It provided that same feeling of satisfaction when you hit a locust pose to stretch out a pesky kink in your lower back. Some people may like their audio experiences livelier, but this conversation felt so intimate and informative, that you are more like a fly on the wall, rather than an acknowledged listener. I appreciated learning about Pixar and their belief in creating an excellent space to do excellent work, which leads me to think how we do that in a world of distance learning. How do we create a world that draws people in to do excellent work and learn great things, when we are no longer occupying physical spaces? Tune in to this podcast when you’re working but don’t want to worry about active listening.

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Navigating the Customer Experience

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Host Yanique Grant reminds of me of watching TVJ while cosied up on the sofa on rainy evenings in Jamaica. Her news caster deliverance brings an official air to her content, conversation and experiences that are provided by her global guests. This official impression is interrupted every so often by an appreciative giggle here and there, an “umm hmm” and “ahh” of approval or surprise that adds warmth to the show. She listens intently to her guests in a way that signals you to the same. The focus of her podcasts has an international perspective of customer experience and the types of career paths and roles that deal with it. In an episode where she meets with CMO Jim Freeze, they focus on the emphasis on CX during the pandemic and CX coming to the fore front. They discuss how unprepared businesses were for the pandemic and how companies had to recover after an initial dip in service. Also, they highlighted examples of what organisations did to redeem themselves during this time. This podcast is great to listen to in the evenings or when travelling. I always finish Yanique’s podcasts with a new perspective and usually a new solution to problem that I had not recognised yet.

All the aforementioned podcasts are hosted by passionate and charismatic CX enthusiasts and professionals, that explore the state of the customer experience in their own unique ways. Let us know via our social media if you have any great CX podcasts that you’d recommend or what you think about those that have been mentioned in this article.

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