customer-experience
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Starbucks is buying back the coffeehouse
The company made coffee a place to go. Then convenience crowded the room. Its return to hospitality comes with a $500 million staffing investment and a lesson in what customers actually buy.
JetBlue made flying nicer. Now comes the expensive part.
Free Wi-Fi and a seatback screen made JetBlue easy to like. Turning that affection into a durable business has proved a much harder flight.
Maximus and the art of getting through
A government promise still needs someone to answer the phone. Maximus built a $5.43 billion business around that inconvenient little detail.
Chipotle Mexican Grill built a better line.
The burrito made Chipotle famous. The less obvious invention was a way to sell more of them without making every customer stand in the same queue.
Altudo and the art of subtraction
One client had 109 marketing tools. Altudo helped cut the stack to 66. The bigger story is what happens when customer experience becomes a problem of organization.
Palni makes the software worth using
The enterprise already has the software. Palni works on the awkward part: connecting the data, fixing the workflow, and getting people to use it.
Astound Digital and the art of removing friction
A seven-page checkout. A service agent missing an order. Astound Digital builds the connections that make buying easier - and its own growing pains explain why the plumbing matters.
Your car dealer has amnesia. Team Velocity has a fix.
The dealership already knows your car, your payments, and your service history. Team Velocity’s Apollo platform asks a useful question: why should its website make you start over?
Your phone menu. Now with eyes.
Visualyzr took a familiar customer-service frustration and put it on a screen. Its visual IVR platform made a simple bet: people should be able to see where they are going.
VML Commerce makes the sale part of the story
An expired coupon. A supermarket with hundreds of moving parts. VML Commerce works where a brand’s promise has to survive an actual purchase.
CALL lets someone else take the credit
CallCorp puts cloud contact-center software behind a partner’s brand. Its business turns on a deceptively simple question: who owns the customer when the call ends?
KUBRA makes the waiting easier
A bill. A blackout. A question nobody wants to ask twice. KUBRA builds the systems that help utilities answer before the phone rings.
Horizontal Digital makes the pieces work together
A holiday booking, a bank website, a bag of dog food. Horizontal Digital works on the awkward handoffs that turn ordinary customer journeys into obstacle courses.
Calabrio and the hidden cost of hold.
A contact center can have enough people and still keep everyone waiting. Calabrio built a business around that mismatch. Now its tools live inside Verint.
NeuraFlash makes AI answer the phone.
The hard part of customer service AI is everything behind the conversation. NeuraFlash built a business connecting those pieces - and Accenture bought it.
GALE makes the data worth opening
A burrito order can become a story. GALE has built a business around connecting customer intelligence, creative work, and the next purchase.
Reprise Digital found the gaps between the clicks
A search agency became a global performance network by joining up the work around the ad. Its next act came in 2023, when Reprise became part of KINESSO.
Televerde puts a second chance on the sales line.
The B2B sales company trains incarcerated women to win customers for enterprise clients. Its more interesting product may be the career that survives the prison gate.
SaviLinx makes the complicated call.
A benefits question can become a staffing problem, a cash-flow problem, or a language problem. Heather Blease built SaviLinx to work through all three.
SupportZebra sells the luxury of focus
A declined card. A ringing phone. Another interrupted engineer. SupportZebra builds the teams and workflows that stop everyday customer problems from swallowing the whole company.
Connextions put a human in the loop.
Health insurance had a translation problem. Connextions paired trained agents with its own software, building a business that TeleTech bought for $80 million.
Savantis Solutions Makes the Back Office Part of the Show
A cinema ticket is the start of a surprisingly complicated chain. Savantis connects the customer-facing moment to the machinery behind it - and sells the expertise to keep that machinery running.
Megazone Corp makes complexity disappear
A car manual that reads the dashboard. A television platform rebuilt while viewers keep watching. Megazone’s work starts with the things people should never have to think about.
MaestroQA discovered the trouble with a good score
A tidy scorecard can hide a messy business. Now renamed Rippit, MaestroQA is turning customer conversations into evidence for coaching, product decisions and revenue risk.
parcelLab and the business of keeping customers waiting well
The sale is finished. The customer’s questions are just beginning. parcelLab helps retailers turn the uneasy interval between checkout and delivery into a reason to come back.
Lorikeet wants your missing card to be its problem
The Australian AI company is selling support that can finish the job. Its revealing test is what happens when a customer needs more than a beautifully worded answer.
Encore AI wants your best salesperson to be everywhere
Its raw material is the conversation your company already had. Encore AI turns the habits of successful employees into agents that help the next customer finish the job.
AmplifAI and the hidden cost of a better coach
Contact centers collect mountains of data. AmplifAI bets that the useful part is what happens next: a supervisor who knows whom to coach, what to change, and whether it worked.
Notch learned to automate by learning where to stop
An insurer became an AI company after discovering that fluent answers were not enough. Now Notch sells something more demanding: completed work, with rules attached.
HundredX pays causes to hear what customers will buy next
A failed feedback app became a business that funds nonprofits for listening to consumers. HundredX sells the resulting intelligence to leaders who want to know where spending is headed.