Customer Experience University: Winning Loyalty & Engagement.
A weekly brief on customer experience, employee engagement, and service excellence.
Joseph has been publishing it since 2008 — 600+ episodes and counting.
Eight recent episodes.
Short, sharp, relevant.
- 01Aug 149 min
The Standard That Outlived Every Gadget
The handheld device that once felt futuristic at The Ritz-Carlton is obsolete — but the standard it served isn’t. Joseph Michelli makes the case that AI doesn’t rewrite great service; it raises the stakes on it.
- 02Aug 79 min
The Smoke Detector and the Spy
A discount that only appears when you threaten to cancel isn’t loyalty — it’s a confession. Joseph Michelli unpacks the “smoke detector test” for predictive churn AI: the same model can serve customers or surveil them, and they can tell…
- 03Jul 319 min
Your Managers Are the Algorithm
Every leader’s obsessing over which AI model to deploy. Joseph Michelli argues they’re ignoring the real algorithm: the middle manager who decides whether AI feels like a gift or a threat.
- 04Jul 2410 min
The Handoff Problem
The bot was fine. The agent was great. The customer was still left furious — because of the handoff between them. In this episode, Joseph Michelli makes the case that AI-to-human escalation, not the bot itself, is the real failure point in…
- 05Jul 1710 min
The Referral Engine
Referral programs mostly fail because companies try to manufacture word of mouth rather than capture it. In this episode, Joseph Michelli reframes referrals as a design problem, not a promotion problem — anchored by Nielsen’s finding that…
- 06Jul 1011 min
Personalization Isn’t Loyalty
Everyone now owns the same AI personalization tools — so personalization can no longer be your loyalty strategy. In this episode, Joseph Michelli separates loyalty from retention and makes the data case for emotional connection, citing HBR…
- 07Jul 37 min
Leading Through AI Anxiety
Only 20% of employees worldwide are engaged — and AI is about to test that fragile number. In this episode, Joseph Michelli draws on Gallup’s latest global data and a Ritz-Carlton lesson in trust to explain why AI leaks engagement before…
- 08Jun 2610 min
The Empathy Gap
Everyone’s buying the same AI. So what’s left to compete on? In this episode, Joseph Michelli makes the financial case for the “empathy gap” — the 28-point chasm between how customers rate human service versus AI — and shares three moves…
Brief. Timely. Straight to the point.
Every episode starts with a question leaders are asking — and ends with something you can act on. Brief, timely, and straight to the point. No guests, no filler. Just Joseph and one idea worth your time.
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