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In this episode of Navigating the Customer Experience, we sit down with Ty Givens, the dynamic Founder and CEO of CX Collective, a consultancy known for building customer experience programs that scale while still feeling human. With a career that began at just 18 years old, Ty walks us through her remarkable journey from her first customer service desk at Office Depot to leading global teams and eventually launching her own company nine years ago.

Ty shares how an early promotion into workforce management shaped her analytical mindset and laid the foundation for her future leadership roles. After years of being called in to “fix” support operations, she recognized that real transformation requires more than one person—it requires systems, collaboration, and a dedicated team. That realization became the catalyst for starting CX Collective.

One of her greatest rewards today is witnessing the tangible results of her team’s work—whether it's improving a help center’s searchability or strengthening an AI knowledge base. Ty describes herself as results-driven and energized by project-based outcomes that create long-term value for clients.

Ty also opens up about the emotional challenges of leading support teams. Early leadership training at Intuit, combined with her MBA in Organizational Leadership, helped her develop a grounded approach centered on emotional intelligence, inquiry, and humility. Recognizing her strengths as an operator rather than a novice-leader coach, she began developing CX playbooks—practical guides that help leaders navigate common challenges, from time management to launching AI programs. These playbooks have become both her most essential tool and a source of self-reflection.

Ty talks about the importance of community, staying curious about industry trends, and the advantage of having worked inside many different organizations. She also shares the fiction authors who shaped her love for storytelling—Eric Jerome Dickey and Carl Weber—and why their writing continues to resonate.

We also explore what Ty is most excited about these days: celebrating her niece’s freshman year at Tuskegee University and being stretched professionally as she leans into marketing her playbooks to a broader audience—an entirely new frontier after years of organic, word-of-mouth growth.

Ty closes the conversation with two powerful affirmations from her grandparents that guide her through adversity:

“You can do anything you put your mind to,” and “Lace up your bootstraps.” These messages remind her to stay grounded, confident, and ready to face whatever comes.

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In this episode of Navigating the Customer Experience, we dive deep into the career and mindset of Jamie Homen, a seasoned customer experience (CX) leader with over 20 years in the industry. Now leading CX at Mural, an AI-powered visual collaboration platform, Jamie shares valuable perspectives on effective leadership, cross-functional alignment, and how customer-centric decisions drive business success.

🛤️ Jamie’s Journey into Customer Experience

Starting as a call center agent, Jamie never anticipated becoming a Chief Customer Officer. He has watched the field mature and is now thrilled to see customer experience earn a seat at the executive table. At Mural, he’s helping customers visualize collaborative work in a remote world, which he believes is central to modern CX strategies.

💡 Key Leadership Insights

To drive customer success in today’s dynamic environment, Jamie focuses on two major practices:

1. Cross-Functional Alignment: Ensuring teams like sales, marketing, product, and CX operate cohesively. He emphasizes co-creation to close gaps and build customer-centric processes.
2. Empowering Teams: Encouraging employees at all levels to make customer-first decisions, supported by ongoing development and understanding of individual skill sets—especially as AI reshapes roles.

🧠 Overcoming Challenges

Jamie shares a personal story: in high school, he was told he shouldn't pursue college. Refusing to let that define him, he pushed forward and earned three degrees. This experience now fuels his belief in perseverance and self-motivation—key traits he brings into his leadership.

🛠️ Can’t-Live-Without Tool

ChatGPT tops Jamie’s list for its ability to generate ideas, create personas, and gather insights. He predicts a growing shift from traditional search platforms to AI-powered tools across industries.

📚 Book Recommendation

Managing Up by Rosanne Badowski has had a lasting impact on Jamie’s leadership approach, especially in building effective relationships with managers—a skill he considers timeless despite changing workplace technology.

🤖 What’s Exciting Jamie Now

AI transformation. He’s focused on integrating AI across Mural to better understand customers and enhance internal workflows without losing the human element—AI as an enabler, not a replacement.

💬 Favorite Quote

“Adversity introduces a man to himself.” — Albert Einstein
Jamie uses this quote as a reminder to reflect, grow, and persist through obstacles.

🔗 Connect with Jamie

LinkedIn – Jamie Homen
Website – mural.co/blog

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In this episode of Navigating the Customer Experience, we sit down with Evan Siegel, Vice President of AI at eGain, where he leads the development of next-generation AI-powered conversational guidance. With a rich background that includes 16 years at Wells Fargo leading customer experience and contact center innovation, Evan brings deep insight into how technology can drive better service outcomes without losing the human touch.

Evan’s career journey began in entrepreneurship — running a successful residential painting business that grew to 300 employees before he sold it and pursued an MBA at Stanford. His experience at Wells Fargo honed his expertise in solving large-scale customer pain points and improving first-contact resolution in massive contact centers. Those experiences led him to eGain, a company dedicated to providing “the right answer to the right person at the right time, in the right channel.”

Evan explains that eGain’s AI-powered knowledge management platform helps companies clean, update, and centralize information so agents can quickly find accurate answers. This not only improves customer satisfaction but also transforms efficiency—some clients have seen up to 37% improvement in first-contact resolution, a 30-point rise in Net Promoter Score, and 50% reduction in training time. For instance, eGain supports the U.S. Veterans Administration, the country’s largest healthcare provider, to deliver consistent, fast, and empathetic service across millions of interactions.

A key theme in the discussion is balancing technology and empathy. Evan emphasizes that AI doesn’t replace human connection—it enhances it by freeing up employees’ mental space to focus on emotional intelligence and rapport-building. By handling the “how” of issue resolution, AI lets people focus on the “who.”

He also shares how eGain builds knowledge bases for each company by analyzing customer inquiries, extracting top issues using AI, and rewriting existing materials to align with best practices for clarity and accessibility. This process—once lengthy and manual—can now be done in days or weeks.

When asked about tools he can’t live without, Evan points to AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, which he uses daily as brainstorming and writing partners. His motto: “AI won’t replace me, but someone who knows how to use AI better than me will.”

Evan also discusses two books that shaped him: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, which taught him the power of genuine curiosity in relationships, and William Manchester’s three-part biography of Winston Churchill, which inspired lessons in conviction, communication, and strategic thinking.

Today, what excites Evan most is collaborative leadership—bringing teams together to brainstorm, check egos at the door, and make the best collective decisions. His guiding philosophy: “I don’t need to be the smartest person in the room. I need to make the best decision coming out of the room.”

He closes with another favorite quote: “You miss every shot you don’t take.” For Evan, this embodies the spirit of innovation at eGain—experiment fast, learn fast, and keep improving.

Listeners can connect with Evan on LinkedIn or email him at esiegel@egain.com
to learn more about eGain’s new AI self-service agent for small businesses, featuring reasoning capabilities, a free trial, and no-contract flexibility.

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