Delivering a customer-first experience in a tech-driven world

For the majority of companies, putting the CX proposition at the core of the product or service – rather than offering it as a value add – is a surefire way to differentiate in a saturated market. But for others, this approach is the foundation upon which a product or service is built. 

Take Expereo, which provides enterprise connectivity, managed internet services, and even satellite connectivity, among other services. While uptime and service quality are key to customer retention, the firm has built an equally strong reputation for CX by putting experience at the core of its operations. 

“When we describe the Expereo experience we talk about three key defining elements: customer-centric, platform-driven, and expert-enabled,” says CX director Amory Somers Vine. “These elements guide our approach, but more importantly they resonate with our customers when we talk to them about their ideal experience outcomes.”  

Somers Vine says it starts with the commitment to delivering a “world-class experience”, and that the focus is on building this “into the heart of our culture.” “At Expereo we believe in the correlation between the employee experience (EX) and the customer experience (CX). Our investments and focus on both sides of this equation builds the foundation for great service,” she explains. 

In the company’s 2025 annual feedback programs, this connection was evident. As many as 90 percent of Expereo employees strongly agreed that great customer service is important to business performance and 86 percent of our customers agreed or strongly agreed that Expereo cares about its customers. 

In this interview with CX Network, Somers Vine explains how organizations in all industries can switch to a customer-first mindset, how Expereo is using agentic AI to enhance data quality, and how the organization ensures its CX tech investments can meet both business and customer needs. 

CX Network: How can organizations – in both B2B and B2C – that are heavily product-first, become more customer-first? 

Amory Somers Vine: I believe that the first step is a conscious decision, wholeheartedly backed by senior leadership, to put customers first.  

At Expereo we have a mantra to “Love the customers we have, and wow those we want to win” but a tagline isn’t enough, it’s imperative that customer requirements, customer perspectives, validation and feedback form part of the core decision making processes in the company. Executive sponsorship of customer relationships, regular reviews of customer feedback, and customer impact assessments are good tactics. 

Another key factor is ensuring that product teams have easy access to customers to learn, share, shape, and co-create  products.   

We have built an expereoOne customer user group – a community of key customers, who meet quarterly to collaborate on platform developments. This has proven to be an invaluable resource for our product and development teams to enhance their understanding of customer requirements and provide a forum to test and validate concepts, prototypes, and MVPs.     

For our customers, it provides a valued peer network, gives them the opportunity to shape their service experience, and early access to the latest features and functionality. 

CX Network: How is Expereo using agentic AI to better manage workflows that directly impact the customer experience? 

Amory Somers Vine: We’re focusing new agentic AI capabilities on high-value, low-risk use cases with human-in-the-loop supervision.​ Our teams have identified several research tracks that take our most repetitive tasks and processes that ingest large volumes of data or require several iterations to refine and validate outcomes.

Agentic AI offers great advantages in enhancing data quality, automating follow ups and issue detection, and enhancing timely and consistent communication, and we’re excited about the progress we’re making in quickly testing and integrating these new capabilities. 

CX Network: When it comes to implementing the latest and most sophisticated technology for CX, how do you ensure your investment meets both customer and organizational needs? 

Amory Somers Vine: These are some of the factors we see as critical in our rollout and adoption planning for our recent investments in AI, automation, and platform developments.

1. Speed to value: Focus on the quick wins, implement, and then iterate and improve.  
2. Change management for internal teams: Identify your change champions and super users and ensure they are fully engaged and leveraged to inform, test, and support adoption.
3. Test with customers: Choose your group of trusted advisors and enable customers to co-create and learn with you. 
4. Clear adoption programs: Take the time to ensure your putting every effort into clear communications and well-supported adoption plans to make process changes as easy as possible for customers.
5. Celebrate success: Sharing success and lessons learned with teams and with customers maintains the momentum and fosters further creativity, use cases, and adoption initiatives.

CX Network: What do you believe will be the most important trends in B2B customer experience in 2026? 

Amory Somers Vine: Without a doubt, agentic AI – both for its ability to fundamentally change service processes, but also its challenge to then redefine the role of service professionals. 

When it comes to platform adoption at scale, customer requirements for fully automated, intelligent processes available at all times within a simple-to-use interface are growing. For many organizations however, managing the shift and often having to support both an old analog process and a new digital process simultaneously adds risk and cost and lowers efficiency.    

For product and CX teams, the importance of adoption programs that quickly shift customers to new ways of work are growing in importance. 

But it’s not all about technology. As we embrace the future, it’s vital to remember that care and the human connection are fundamental human priorities that shouldn’t be neglected. I believe that CX and service professionals hold a unique role in ensuring companies don’t lose sight of their customer connections and relationships. 

However, these trends also have challenges embedded:

1. Losing the human connection while embracing an AI-driven, automated future.
2. Rethinking B2B business processes, not just applying new technology to existing processes.
3. The risk of leaving laggard customers behind through the change.

Quick links 

• Can CX help double your revenue? Zen Internet’s CX director explains
• Customer centricity, company growth, and the future of customer listening
• The A-Z of net revenue retention: A CX Network Guide