Episode 259 : CX Beyond the Hype: Global Survey Insights, Outsourcing Strategies & Leadership Lessons

Peter Ryan is the President and founder of Ryan Strategic Advisory, which is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts in CX and BPO. Throughout his career, Peter has advised CX outsourcers, contact center clients, national governments, and industry associations on strategic matters like vertical market penetration, service delivery, best practices in technology deployment and offshore positioning. Each year, Peter publishes the CX Technology and Global Services Survey, known as the most comprehensive and sounding of enterprise customer experience buyers in North America, Europe and Australia.

• So, could you share with our listeners, just a little bit about who you are, how you got from where you were to where you are today?
• What is the CX Technology and Global Services Survey about, and what key insights or statistics from it help guide CX strategy and leadership decisions?
• Can you tell us more about your CX Outsourcers conference and where it has been held recently?
• What are the top two areas business leaders should focus on for customer experience as they plan for 2026 and beyond?
• If you could share maybe one or two books that you’ve read, even a book that you read a very long time ago that has had a great impact on you, what would those one or two books be?
• Can you also share with us what’s the one online resource, tool, website or application that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?
• Can you share with us what’s the one thing that’s going on in your life right now that you’re really excited about, either something you’re working on to develop yourself or your people?
• Before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you’ll tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you get derailed or you get off track, the quote kind of helps to get you back on track.

Me: Now, Peter, I know we read our guest’s bio, but we always like to give them an opportunity to share a little bit about their journey. So, could you share with our listeners, just a little bit about who you are, how you got from where you were to where you are today?

Peter shared that he has been a sole proprietor or running his own business now for about 9 years, an advisory firm that’s focused around customer experience and all elements as it relates to CX, whether it’s technology, outsourcing, service delivery, you name it. But he actually got into this gig going back and he can’t even believe it when he says this, 22 years ago, working in London, when he got hired at a market analysis firm, an amazing company called Data Monitor. And it was interesting because he was on the hunt for a role, and he’d use data monitors research in a previous job that he’d had when he was working in the computer space.

And what was interesting was when he applied, and he’d indicated that he had the experience using their content, they reached out to him, and they said, “Well, we do have a couple of roles open on the CRM team. Would you be interested?” He said, “I’d be very interested. I’m acutely interested in CRM.” And after he hung the phone up and made the appointment to go for the first interview, the first thing he did was he went to Yahoo, because Google wasn’t really a thing then, and asked Yahoo what CRM actually was, and well, the rest was history.

CX Technology and Global Services Survey Insights for Strategy and Leadership

Me: Now in your bio, it’s mentioned that you publish a report on an annual basis called CX Technology and Global Services Survey. Can you share with our listeners what that report is about, and maybe just some high level statistics that are generated from the report that influences CX and decisions that leaders make on a strategic level.

Peter shared that a CX Technology and Global Services Survey is something that they’ve been doing now for coming up to 8 years. Now, the idea is to get into the minds of the enterprise CX leader, to figure out a little bit about what their priorities are. What are they looking to invest in from a customer experience perspective, equally speaking, what are some of their pain points? What are some of the challenges they’re facing on a daily basis? They also like to get a sense check from them about where they sit when it comes to using the service of technology firms, of outsourcers, their thoughts about different business models, which could include the near shore, the offshore, hybrid, or home working.

And the idea really, is to really level set year on year, to try and benchmark certain important statistics, certain important levels around things such as their willingness to adopt certain technologies, their willingness to work with BPO partners. What’s hurting them today from a challenge standpoint that perhaps wasn’t on the horizon a few years ago? So, the report itself is about 120 pages. He always say it’s great in case you’re having any insomnia problems, he’s just kidding on that. But to their knowledge, are running the largest survey of its kind. This year, they spoke to 819 enterprise CX decision makers in North America, in Asia Pacific and in Western Europe.

Me: Wow, that’s amazing. So, what are some overarching themes that came out of this year’s survey?

Peter shared that there’s a few of them. Number one, the big overarching theme he would say, is the need to deal with compliance, regulation, data security. This is always a factor when it comes to the survey work that they do, when they talk a little bit about what are some of the investment priorities, or what are some of the obstacles or challenges that enterprises are dealing with, but it’s really standing out this year. He doesn’t think there’d be any surprise that fraud prevention, stopping cyber hacks, and dealing with evolving regulation around data privacy, very, very important when it comes to how organizations or how leaders of CX departments are looking to try and navigate exactly what they have to do in 2025 and beyond.

He’d say another one that’s come out is the extent to which organizations are working with BPOs for at least part of some of their customer experience delivery. The reality is, they see this percentage growing year on year, in regards to the number of firms that say, “Yes, we are actively engaged with a service delivery partner, or that we’re looking to do so if we’re not already.” Which he thinks is really interesting, because now what’s that’s doing is it’s showing that outsourcing is a baked in part of the entire CX dynamic.

And the third one, he would say, they’re starting to get a sense of in terms of the statistics, but he thinks he and Yanique can agree, anecdotally, this is very big, that the buyers of CX technology are really getting tired of the hype cycle around artificial intelligence.

There’s a lot of concern about the extent to which organizations are willing to deploy this, but they’re looking for real life use cases in terms of how it can be deployed. One of the things that they tracked this year, and again, he can confirm, they’ve been hearing this anecdotally as well, that the number of organizations, or the number of leaders of organizations that have indicated demand is going to increase for different AI tools or products has actually gone down year on year from last year. Now, it’s still a significant number of organizations that are saying that they do anticipate demand, but it’s not as much as it was say in 2024 or 2023.

Me: Great. Surveys are so fascinating in terms of the insights that they can give you. And it really puts things in perspective, because sometimes you may have a thought about something, but the thoughts and what you’ve actually collected in reality, they don’t necessarily match, so it definitely keeps you grounded on what’s happening.

Peter stated absolutely, he agrees.

Me: Now, we would love to also talk to you, Peter, about your conference that you keep CX Outsourcers. It’s an excellent conference that brings many people together. I was lucky enough last year to participate and be a member as one of the podcast panelists when we had the event in Atlanta. It was superb. And this year, you were in was it Russia?

Peter shared that they were in Munich, Germany. And, yeah, it was a fabulous, fabulous event. He shared that by the way; they were the ones lucky to have Yanique participating in Atlanta. So, thank you for taking part. You (Yanique) were one of their stars.

CX Outsourcers is an initiative that he founded alongside his business partners Tracy Freeman and Mark Angus. And the entire basis of the event is to bring together like-minded outsourcing executives from the customer experience frontline side to talk a little bit about what are going to be some of these strategic implications for the industry as we move forward.

Now, they held their first one in 2018 in Las Vegas, and they’ve been holding them annually with except for a little break during the pandemic. But they’re coming up to their 7th one in 2026 which will be held in Ottawa, in Canada. So, it’s the first time in North America that they’ve done it outside the States, and they’re very excited about it.

But it’s very truly, as you saw in Atlanta, a global event where they have people who literally come in from all over the world. They have thought leadership speakers that come in from again, different parts of the globe to be able to share their, what he would say, unfiltered opinions and views on what’s going on in the outsourcing space, but as well, more from a macro level, too. They have a number of speakers that will take part from outside of their industry to try and a give a big picture view on what’s going on in other sectors that might be applicable to our space, in terms of the outsourced contact center world.

Me: So, when you look at the strategic outreach that you’re doing in terms of getting leaders to figure out where they’re going to go and what they’re going to focus on, and even through the survey, and even your own business, Peter that you run, if you could, maybe we’re a little bit over half of 2025 and I know organizations, even if their financial year is not January 2026, they are looking, seeing that we’ve passed the middle of 2025, what they’re going to focus on for 2026, they’re looking beyond the horizon of 2025. Now, as a thought leader, as an expert in this space, if you were to pick, let’s say two things that you believe business leaders need to focus on as it relates to customer experience. What would those two things be?

Peter shared that he thinks number one, the most important factor, is to recognize that, broadly speaking, consumers do not feel they’re being serviced well. And he truly believes that people who are leading CX departments or their outsourcing partners need to try and understand what’s going on. Why do consumers feel that they’re not getting the level of service that they merit? And to try and fix that. Because talk about data and surveys, he’s a big believer in quantitative data, and if you take a look at the results that come out from the regularly published American Customer Service Index or their equivalent that’s done in the United Kingdom. It’s plumbing new depths right now, and he would dare say it’s the same phenomenon going on in other parts of Western Europe or North America or across Asia Pacific. We need to ask ourselves, what’s going on? How do we fix it?

The second thing he would say is that organizations, if he was to give some advice to any CX leader, it’s you’ve got to fight your corner. We understand that budgets are tight. We understand that there’s not necessarily as much disposable income floating around within organizations to spend. But when it comes to that boardroom allocation for budget, they have got to go, and they have got to fight emphatically for the money that they need to make the right investments.

We can’t keep doing CX like we were doing it 5 years ago, 10 years ago, that formula won’t work. Getting the right balance, the right mix of investing in the people, the processes and technology (PPT) as he calls it, doesn’t stand for passport, doesn’t stand for PowerPoint, people, process and technology. That’s what it comes down to. And if you’re not constantly evolving that investment, if you’re not constantly rebalancing and recalibrating it, then you’re going to get caught out.

And you always see these numbers out there. You’ve seen them like he has, that it costs infinitely more to win a new consumer than it does to retain one. He thinks there’s a lot of enterprises that are just not thinking rationally around this and keep trying to do more with less.

Me: Yeah, agreed. Totally agree.

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Peter

When asked about books that have had an impact, Peter stated that he was considering this when Yanique had shared with him a little bit of the show notes and what he should think about.

A couple of them came up, and he’s going to propose two different books, very different from one another. So, the first one he going to talk about is a book called, What Does This Button Do? and it’s written by Bruce Dickinson, who is the lead singer of Iron Maiden.

Now this, to him, is a very important book and some people might scoff if they haven’t read it, but anybody who has read it will understand there’s so many angles of significance to it. This is a young guy who, he was brought up, raised by his grandparents, he came from, unfortunately, a broken home, showed very quickly an aptitude for scholastics as well as for music, as well as for athletics. And to give you an idea how smart Bruce Dickinson is.

You know, there’s Mensa, the high IQ group. Well, he’s in the group that’s above Mensa. And what he did was he, he studied at university, he became the singer of one of the biggest rock bands in the world, still to this day, but at the same time, he ended up getting a Doctorate in Business. He ended up founding a company that produces fencing equipment and trained world class fencers in the UK. Decided that it was time to get a pilot’s license. Became an airline pilot, worked for British Airways, trained pilots as well, did some movie production. But what is so important about this is he never stopped learning. He never stopped reinventing himself, or finding ways of taking interests and being able to explore them to an in depth point where he was able to monetize them, where he was able to pursue them and feel that he’d fulfilled his interest in them, and continues to do so. Equally speaking, I think it’s important to realize that he’s a cancer survivor, and that he did not let throat cancer, which I think we can all agree, would be absolutely catastrophic for the singer of a rock band. He basically had to learn how to sing all over again, but he didn’t let it stop him, and here he is in his late 60s, and he’s still going strong.

The second book that he would talk about is one that he read several years ago. It’s called The Hawke Memoirs, and it’s by the former Prime Minister of Australia Bob Hawke. And again, a fascinating story of somebody who, again showed significant academic aptitude, ended up going to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship, coming back to Australia, headed up the largest trade union in the country, eventually became Prime Minister, but in the process of doing so, overcame alcoholism. And overcame a number of challenges related to his Family. And what it struck him, why that book is important, all through it, you see a pattern of decisive decision making, not necessarily avoiding problems, but facing them head on. And what happens when you’re able to do that? Sometimes it’s very challenging over the near to medium term to take that approach. But Hawke is somebody who did not bury things under the carpet. He would absolutely go out, and he would overcome all the different elements as they came forward because of the fact that he recognized the need to do so. And when people ask him about which books he will name check, when he thinks about ones that have inspired him, it’s those two amazing.

When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Peter stated that that’s a really good one. If he’s talking about websites, more and more, he’s finding that he’s not surfing the web as much. In fact, he actually Googled the other day, “Is the internet getting boring?”

It’s not like the good old days. Now you can go to a few new sites, and unfortunately, news does not have the same level of objectivity that it did a few years ago from most different sources. He finds himself going to two or three similar websites each day, and none of them are really related to work.

It’s more different elements of current events, sports, entertainment and so forth, just fun stuff. But he would say, if we were talking about an application, What’s App has become a real tool for him.

Now, he thinks we can all agree that it became something of a bit of a social phenomenon a decade, decade and a half ago, but now he’s finding he’s using it for professional purposes. People tend to be very responsive. You can file share on What’s App, which is really handy. And whereas he thinks email has got its place, What’s App has become his go to for rapid response.

When he sends a What’s App to a work connection, generally, they’ll respond very quickly, and they’ll respond with something that’s going to be relatively accurate. Email, he thinks everybody’s having the same problem with it. People are just overloaded. It’s full of not necessarily spam, but just stuff that’s just not relevant. And the number of newsletters that he doesn’t recall signing up for that he seems to be getting that just end up going right into the bin.

And with the best will in the world, he just doesn’t think people can manage the volume of email traffic that’s coming through. What’s App tends to be a lot more efficient that way.

Me: Yeah, What’s App is amazing. And I mean, I was just talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago, when you think about, well, in Jamaica, when we used to have to dial people, back in the day, when I was a little girl, we used to have something called ICAS  and you dial 113, and then you hear the phone makes a sound, it makes this weird sound, and then it connects you, and then it’s just so amazing. Now, the telephone companies have lost out completely, because you can literally message somebody on What’s App in India, in Czechoslovakia. You could be anywhere in the world and be able to communicate with people. So, technology has really allowed us, that’s when you realize how small the world is, because you can connect with people so easily. So, I agree with you.

Peter stated that Yanique raise a good point. He thinks the Telcos have done it to themselves. They cannibalized, they insisted for years on charging excessive amounts to make long distance calls in country or outside of country. And quite frankly, it wasn’t really costing them anything, it’s just because they could. And if you think now the chance to pick up your mobile telephone, use What’s App to phone somebody halfway around the world, and it’s going to cost nothing.

It’s almost like the cable television, before they hit the record button, they were talking about binge watching and so forth. Cable TV has done it themselves. So, many people are cutting the cord because they don’t want to watch the endless quiz shows or talent contests, they don’t want to deal with the commercials, they’d much rather pay a small fee to stream content and watch it when they want.

Me: True and you get to watch the content that you choose to watch because, with television, the program is based on what they put on the television. And then, at least you are in control of what you’re actually giving yourself access to when you have a streaming service.

Peter stated that it’s funny when you watch movies from even 15, 20, years ago, and you see people planning to sit down in front of the TV on a certain night at a certain time to watch something, you just don’t do that now.

Me: I know absolutely, a lot has definitely changed. I even look at my daughter, I mean, she does not like to watch television. She spends a lot of time on her devices, from YouTube to TikTok, all of the different applications. And I find it so fascinating, because I’m still pretty old school, I will watch TV from time to time. I’m not as driven by my devices that that’s the only thing I go to but it’s just so amazing when you look at the generations and what they’re exposed to and what they will gravitate to more, and then you look at other people, it’s fascinating to see people’s behaviour patterns and based on what they were socialized with and what they’re exposed to, what they’ll tend to revert to many times, even though the technology exists.

Peter shared that it’s funny, because he doesn’t recall the last time he’s turned on network TV. He travels a lot, and he gets into hotel rooms, he never turns the television on, that’s how bad it is. He remembers turning a TV on maybe a year or two back and trying to watch an episode of Seinfeld, and it was unwatchable because of all the commercials that just kept popping in. And he thought to himself, easy to turn it off. But no, he doesn’t miss network. He cut the cable about a decade ago and haven’t looked back.

Me: Can you imagine? And I’m sure if they were to do a survey, you are not an anomaly. There are many other customers out there that have done the same thing.

When asked about something that he’s excited about, Peter shared that the one thing that they touched on earlier, that he’d love to name check here, is the CX Outsourcers event. And it’s not even just the event itself, but it’s more that the community that they’re developing, Tracy, Mark and himself. As a matter of fact, they’re really excited because they’re going to be hosting a get together in London on November 21. They’re going to be doing a half day event, a thought leadership lunch that they’ve got a number of BPO executives that are going to be coming to. They’re going to be booking a thought leadership speaker, more on that to come.

But it’s just the opportunity to take this community that they’re looking to continuously build. It’s a game, it’s a work in progress. It never stops. And to try and find a way of bringing like-minded people together, people that want to work together, people that want to partner, people that want to share their experiences and to help make our industry better. When they started this idea in 2018, he goes back to the very first inception of CX Outsourcers was at the Golden Nugget Hotel in Las Vegas in the middle of June when it was nearly 50 degrees outside. And how it has grown from a gathering of maybe 20, 25, people into what they’ve been able to put together. For him, that is a real passion point, and it’s something that he just loves to do, and they love to see how they’re able to include new people, how they’re able to bring individuals into the fold who share a similar philosophy, and just to see the interaction of the individuals and to see how those relationships blossom.

Me: Amazing, amazing. Community, so important sharing, and just kind of getting a better understanding of what each other’s businesses are about, and recognizing that even though we’re not necessarily in the same geographical space, many of us share some of the same challenges. So, if we can find a way to connect and find solutions that can be shareable across the globe, I think it will help to really raise the bar.

Peter stated that he thinks there’s something too he should mention, and (Yanique) saw this in Atlanta last year. What they look to try and provide is a safe space where you’re not going to be sold to, you’re not going to be in a position where one company’s saying we’re doing this better than anybody else. It’s legitimately a case of sharing experiences, sharing best practices, and doing it for the good of our industry. And in his opinion, this is something that we have long been requiring, and Tracy, Mark and himself are very excited to be able to at least fill that space in their own certain way.

When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Peter stated that that’s a really good question. In terms of a specific quote, he doesn’t have one to hand, but he does like to always revert to the philosophy that things can only get better. And maybe that could be the quote from Howard Jones, the 1980s singer from the UK, “Things can only get better.” There is the quote, “This too shall pass.” Everybody has times of adversity, but the key is to remember that if you think practically, if you think logically, and you’re not afraid to duck hard decisions, things will improve.

You (Yanique) and I (Peter) both know whether it’s personally, professionally, things are cyclical. You have sometimes they’re better than others, but when you consider where you might be in the times that aren’t so good, you’re probably in a heck of a lot better position than so many other people in the world. And it pays a little bit to have that perspective. One of the things he hates on LinkedIn is all these people who keep talking about their gratitude, or how grateful they are, as far as he’s concerned, that’s an empty slogan. But what he thinks is important is to recognize that there’s a lot of people, no matter how bad you’re doing, would be very, very enviable and would love to be in your place.

Me: Yeah, I guess it’s the same thing as, if you think your situation is bad, there’s probably somebody else out there who’s in worse situation than you are. So, just as you said, they’re going to go up, nothing last forever.

Peter shared that the other too, is that he does think that we forget, to a very large degree, we can control what’s going on in our own lives. Obviously there’s exogenous factors that that maybe we can’t control, that we have to accept that we can’t control. But to a very large degree, we are masters of our own destiny, and that we have to pick the ball up we have to run with it because if somebody said to him when he was starting out in the workforce, going back into the late 90s, nobody’s going to do it for you, you’ve got to be responsible for your own outcomes. And yes, you might face some outside adversity here and there, recognize that there’s things you can’t control, the things you can control, be proactive.

Me: Amazing. Well, Peter, thank you. Thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule and hop on our podcast. We really enjoyed the conversation, learning more about CX Outsourcers, hearing about your survey and some of the wonderful milestones that you’ve been able to achieve across the different years, the insights that you shared with us as it relates to where you believe CX leaders should be putting their mind as we cross over 2025 into 2026. And just overall, your passion for customer experience and the industry and just helping to create a community of persons that can help to find common solutions to the challenges that they face across the globe, to make customer experience better for consumers all over so thank you so much, it was a great conversation.

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• What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography by Bruce Dickinson
• The Hawke Memoirs by Robert Hawke

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