Spill the Tea | Badge of the Month | May 2026

I feel like I’m already living this! My Claude usage limit seems to hit instantly these days, so I've had to become more intentional about when I use it and how. Less word vomit, more deliberate prompting and for tasks that I know I can’t do (vibe coding) rather than for convenience (helping me word an email). 

The CX Tea -

Companies keep saying they are “customer-centric”, but still measure success mainly on ticket closure time instead of whether the customer’s problem was actually solved.

Fast responses don’t always mean good experiences. Customers remember how easy you made their journey, not how quickly you closed a case in the system.

Real CX maturity starts when organizations stop treating feedback as reporting data and start using it to drive operational change.

Well said! The change management behind this with some leaders can be difficult especially during time of transition in survey platforms. The experience drives the sentiment.

or how about spilling the beans 😁 This personal pet peeve on a popular company phrase "we're listening". 

Although many CX brands pitch their platforms as being great at ‘listening’ the majority are actually only really good at ‘asking’ - through surveys. 

With the advent of support experience outfits like SupportLogic that track sentiment we’re a step closer to actually ‘listening’ which is an exciting development. 

Adding AI to the mix helps on the ‘thinking’ front although some argue 'intelligence' is a misnomer... 

But many organisations still struggle in achieving meaningful follow on steps through 'acting’. Although done by individuals, I wonder if this is being done at scale anywhere with tanglible results. By 'acting', the Experience Management process (or capability) would not just be good at collecting data, but through understanding would develop insights and execute improvements without the customer ever realizing it. Ideally you'd have a process with enough data points, intelligence and automation that would continually improve the Customer Experience without having to ask about their experience! 
 

The hottest take? The companies winning at CX in 2026 won't be the ones with the most AI — they'll be the ones who know exactly where not to use it.

Real intelligence, artificial or not, is knowing when to step aside and let a human moment happen. 🫖

Great insight, Radam! I recently attended a CX summit - and one key takeaway “AI supported by human connection makes effective CX strategies”.  We need a mixture of both and this will look differently for business goals.

I agree with you. When we’ve used it for some research it still needed some quick review & at times, AI pulled incorrect information. 

I agree, Deepak! I have become more comfortable with it as I test it out in my daily work. Always use my brain first but am curious as to the capabilities. It is good to stay informed! 

I agree. Having the human component is also important.

“word vomit”! 🤮 new word of the week for me, thank you ​@AlonsoC . And yes, quality prompting is golden 🌟 and is something I need to get better at

My take on CX Tea - in my opinion one customer service that probably needs to be retired is  :: Making customers repeat the issue multiple times as they get transferred between teams.

Customers often have to explain the same problem to a chatbot. then an agent, then a specialist. It creates frustration, increases resolution time, and makes the company appear disorganized.

A better approach is:

• Maintain context across channels and transfers.
• Give agents access to the customer's previous interactions.
• Provide a concise handoff summary when escalating an issue.

The standard should shift from "Please explain your issue again" to "I see the details of your case and here's where we are so far."

EX AI: I think we ask lot of questions in engagement survey and not all questions are actionable.

Yes!! Completely agree! So frustrating to have to repeat yourself over and over again. Great take, ​@Chhavi_Ch!