CX Leaders Share Views on Thriving in the Experience Economy

In today's experience economy, where every interaction can shape brand loyalty and long-term success, organizations face growing pressure to deliver not only exceptional customer service but also fulfilling employee experiences. The demand for personalization, empathy and speed has never been greater. And businesses are discovering that the path to success lies in balancing human connection with technology.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud innovation are helping to drive this transformation by removing friction, enhancing personalization and freeing employees to focus on what matters most: Building authentic connections. Companies across every industry are rethinking traditional approaches and adopting integrated strategies and technologies like AI to elevate both the customer journey and the employee experience.

During Xperience 2025 in Nashville this week, we spoke with several CX leaders who are redefining what it means to deliver exceptional outcomes in the experience economy. In our Level Up CX Live interviews, forward-thinking organizations share candid insights on scaling operations with agility, embedding AI into everyday workflows, and using analytics to uncover deeper customer sentiment and drive enterprise-wide improvements.

From healthcare to financial services to retail, these stories highlight the mindset shift required to thrive in the experience economy: Think big, start small, move quickly and always put people at the center of every decision.

Robert Allen, Manager, Communication Center Technical Operations, Rochester Regional Health

The State of Customer Experience reportreveals that 64% of consumers surveyed believe artificial intelligence (AI) will improve the quality and speed of customer service over the next two to three years. Rochester Regional Health has experienced this consumer readiness firsthand through its strategic AI deployment. Robert Allen, Manager of Communication Center Technical Operations, advocates for a measured approach to healthcare AI transformation.

"We have adopted the philosophy: Think big, start small, move quickly" Allen told us. "We've seen patients are ready for AI, and they're actively using our verification bots and self-service options. But we don't want to rush to market and have patients experience something negative because we moved too fast. When you have a bad experience with AI, you're not going to go back to that experience. So we take our time, get our feedback, and then scale from there."

Kaleb Stunkard, President and CEO, Lighthouse Works

Cloud platforms are opening new possibilities for rapid business transformation and growth. Kaleb Stunkard, President and CEO of Lighthouse Works Florida, discovered this when the pandemic created unprecedented demand for their services.

"We went from 100 agents to 600 over a couple of years, and Genesys Cloud enabled us to scale seamlessly," Stunkard explained. "We actually implemented Genesys during that growth period, and honestly, it was seamless."

The results speak volumes: Lighthouse Florida expanded from a regional operation to a national presence, doubled its customer base since 2020 and achieved zero customer churn over eight years while maintaining 90% agent retention.

"Genesys gave us API access, developer resources, and the ability to build and innovate on top of the platform," Stunkard noted. "When you have that level of flexibility and innovation support, you can adapt to any business challenge that comes your way."

John Parente, Director, Contact Center Operations, Stanley Steemer

According to "The State of Customer Experience" report from Genesys, only 32% of organizations surveyed have fully moved their CX infrastructure to the cloud. Without being in the cloud, those organizations will be hard-pressed to stay abreast of evolving customer expectations - and likely find it impossible to adopt AI innovations in customer experience.

John Parente, Director of Contact Center Operations at Stanley Steemer, counsels fellow CX leaders considering the move to the cloud that any concerns are overblown. Parente told us, "Get over any fears you have about the cloud's stability and reliability. We are there. Secondly, you want to be on an application that's always innovating. In the cloud, with the right partner, innovation just happens."

Ericka Bennett, Manager, Sales Interaction Analysis and Speech Analytics, Ferguson

Forty-one percent of CX leaders surveyed for "The State of Customer Experience" report cite keeping pace with customers' rising expectations as their greatest challenge. Yet many struggle to implement systematic changes that address root causes rather than symptoms. Organizations often get stuck coaching individual agents rather than leveraging technology to understand customer sentiment and create enterprise-wide solutions. Ericka Bennett, Manager of Sales Interaction Analysis and Speech Analytics at Ferguson, explains how her organization uses speech analytics to identify systemic issues and drive organization-wide change.

"We use our survey responses to narrow the field of vision to the things that our customers are talking about most frequently," said Bennett. "We're looking for words and phrases that can help us isolate how customers are reacting, whether positively or with frustration."

"We then take our insights, communicate them to leadership and stakeholders, who help us drive meaningful, actionable change," she continued. "We can then update our toolkits for associates, empowering them with the information they need to have a better and more effective conversation. We're able to see that progress and improvement, not just from the associate's perspective, but from what we hear from customers as well."

Roi Zahut, Chief Technology Officer, Aterian

"Here's what most companies get wrong about AI implementation: They build powerful tools that sit outside their agents' workflows" says Roi Zahut, Chief Technology Officer at Aterian. "The State of Customer Experience" report from Genesys finds that seamless, integrated experiences are what customers crave - 97% of those surveyed stated they want omnichannel interactions without having to repeat themselves.

The same principle applies internally. "We built our AI capabilities directly within Genesys because context drives adoption. If your AI tools aren't embedded in your agents' natural workflow, they simply won't be used, no matter how sophisticated they are."

Lorena Lovric, Director of Customer Service, Aterian

"Data shows only 11% of consumers say they receive consistently excellent service, yet 82% believe a company is only as good as its service" said Lorena Lovric, Director of Customer Service at Aterian. "This gap exists partly because organizations forget that successful AI implementation requires dual empathy - toward customers and employees."

"Our approach to AI implementation was intentionally designed to make agents comfortable with AI tools," added Lovric. "When your team embraces AI as an enhancement rather than something to fear, that confidence translates directly into better customer experiences."

"Most companies treat email support like an assembly line - generic templates with canned responses and zero personalization" said Lovric. "But here's what they're missing, even though data finds that 58% of customers don't care whether a human or AI solves their problem, they absolutely care about feeling heard and valued. We reimagined email as an opportunity to show customers they're loved, not just another task to complete. When AI helps you deliver genuine care at scale, you're not just solving problems - you're building brand loyalty in every interaction."

Adam Mitchell, Head of Enterprise Business Solutions, Voya Financial

AI-Powered Experience Orchestration has many benefits. One of them is that as more interactions are automated, it frees human agents to work on truly meaningful customer concerns with empathy and skill. As Adam Mitchell, Head of Enterprise Business Solutions at Voya Financial puts it, "Our vision is that we get rid of all the transactional, basic stuff out of the contact center and automated, so that we can let our contact center representatives to do what they do best, which is to be human."

Want to hear more from CX leaders who are driving innovation at their organzations? Check out all of our Level Up CX Live interviews. And watch Xperience 2025 on-demand to see what you missed at the CX + AI event of the year.