June 03 - 04, 2025
| Free CX Network Webinar Series
Vanessa Hardy-Bowen is a transformative leader in customer experience strategy, known for her ability to blend cutting-edge AI innovation with practical, results-driven operations leadership. With over two decades of experience in the airline industry, Vanessa currently leads customer care transformation efforts at Spirit Airlines, where she has been instrumental in reimagining the guest experience through digital innovation, workforce optimization, and strategic vendor partnerships.
Vanessa has spearheaded initiatives that integrate AI and automation across customer service channels—streamlining operations, increasing self-service adoption, and improving agent enablement through intent-driven design. Her work has led to measurable gains in cost efficiency, customer satisfaction, and team productivity.
In addition to her AI-focused efforts, Vanessa brings deep expertise in managing global BPO relationships. She has overseen multi-site contact center networks, driven performance alignment, and helped restructure partner roles to support compliance, training, quality assurance, and scale. Her approach emphasizes partnership transparency, cultural integration, and a strong focus on delivering consistent, empathetic service.
Vanessa is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, was named runner up to Contact Center Leader of the Year at CCW 2024, and is passionate about mentoring future leaders, championing diversity in leadership, and shaping strategies that empower teams while enhancing the digital guest journey.
Day One - 3 June, 2025
1:00 PM How Spirit Airlines scaled smart self-service with AI
When travel plans go wrong, the contact centre feels it first. For Spirit Airlines, the spike in cancellations, changes, and refund requests brought an unexpected opportunity: use AI and data to rethink how guests solve their own problems faster.
In this session, Vanessa Hardy-Bowen, Director of Guest Care & Contact Center at Spirit Airlines, will spotlight how the airline giant built a proof-driven AI strategy rooted in self-service. We will discuss how they turned low-hanging fruit like bag changes and flight credits into high-impact wins, using pilots to test both technology and vendors, while bringing execs, legal, and cybersecurity along for the ride.
Learn how they balanced in-house ambition with the speed of external partners, built business cases with measurable ROI, and laid the groundwork for future innovation, delivering cost savings and guest satisfaction at scale.
Attendees will learn:
- How to use proof-of-concept pilots to prove ROI, test partnerships, and unlock executive buy-in
- Which self-service use cases are ripest for AI, and how to avoid operational pitfalls
- How Spirit connected CX data, team insights, and automation to reduce contact volume and boost CSAT
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