Podcast Summary

B2B Agility with Greg Kihlström™: MarTech, E-Commerce, & Customer Success

Episode 65: Transforming CX with AI plus People, Processes, and Platforms
Guest: John Durocher, Chief Customer Officer, Calix
Release Date: October 14, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode explores how AI is reshaping customer experience (CX) in B2B organizations, with an emphasis on the essential interplay between people, processes, and platforms. Host Greg Kihlström leads a lively, pragmatic discussion with John Durocher, Chief Customer Officer at Calix. Together, they dig into practical strategies for using AI to drive better CX, ways to empower employees, and methods for building trust and simplicity throughout the customer journey.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. John Durocher’s Background and Calix’s Approach to CX

[01:18–02:01]

• John recounts his journey from Accenture (globalization/outsourcing), to Salesforce (cloud success teams), and finally to Calix, where the focus is on moving from “selling a commodity to delivering an experience-first solution.”
• The evolution: Helping customers add differentiating value through experience, not just product.

2. Calix’s AI Philosophy: Beyond Trendy Features

[02:30–03:50]

• Calix emphasizes purposeful experimentation with AI: “Encouraging people to experiment, but…with governance around it…if it doesn’t get to scale, it’s not that useful.” (John, [02:30])
• AI must be embedded, not just bolted on: “AI has to be fundamental to the solution…not just slapped onto a bullet list of features.” (John, [03:27])
• Focus on enhancing—not diminishing—the human experience for both employees and customers.

3. Real-World Examples: AI in Proactive CX & Hyperpersonalization

[04:29–06:08]

• Calix is rolling out AI agents for network anomaly detection: “The network is constantly looking ahead for the anomalies…getting an engineer to act before a customer even knows there’s a problem.” (John, [04:49])
• Goal: “As a customer, you want to not have the problem at all.”
• AI-driven hyperpersonalization: Fine-tuning offers and experiences to individuals using data, not just broad cohorts: “You’re getting a hyperpersonalized offer in the app or in a channel that’s just for you.” (John, [05:30])
• Optimizing capacity in smaller organizations by chaining AI agents and inserting humans only when most valuable.

4. Empowering Employees for Exceptional CX

[06:46–09:48]

• Transparency is key: “First, make sure [employees] have the same data that the customers have about what’s going on.” (John, [06:46])
• Culture and flexible processes enable frontline staff to resolve customer issues beyond rigid policies.
• Memorable Story: John shares a travel mishap where an airline crew personally tried (and failed) to retrieve his lost bike—but their effort and empathy made all the difference in his perception ([07:49–09:33]).
• “Accountability over blindly standing behind a policy is so powerful.” (John, [09:22])
• Importance of rewarding proactive, empowered employees.

5. Balancing Automation and Human Touch

[10:21–12:38]

• Companies must intentionally design for human intervention “even if it’s only 10-15% of the cases.”
• Bad automation experiences erode trust, especially when customers can’t reach a human (Amazon cited as example).
• Cross-functional design is required for seamless CX: “First functions have a goal…But nobody’s saying, okay, how does this really…How does the customer experience that? What are the seams? What AI is going to do…is expose those seams fast.” (John, [11:23])
• Automation is about “increasing human interaction, not decreasing,” so that humans can focus on value-added moments.

6. Trust & Simplicity as Cornerstones of CX

[13:23–16:19]

• Rebuilding and maintaining trust hinges on transparency: “Be willing to share when you’re having a problem. Be proactive about that.” (John, [13:23])
• Early missteps at Calix spurred John to overhaul incident communication and standardize transparency.
• Customers are more forgiving and loyal when kept informed, even during outages or data breaches.
• Case in Point: Sonos’ transparent communication during an app change improved customer sentiment ([15:25]).
• Preventative action and visible improvement reinforce trust over time.

7. Simplifying the Customer Journey Amid Organizational Complexity

[17:15–19:34]

• Calix uses AI-powered agents to simulate and report on a customer’s journey through client websites: “Are the offers clear? What are the sticking points? Where do I get hung up? … Now we have that in our hands, we’re in a report, and we can say, how do we make that better?” (John, [17:20])
• “Do you understand what that experience is like?” Often companies don’t—so ‘secret shopping’ and leadership involvement are vital.
• Notable Moment: Leadership at other companies, including Uber, regularly experience their own services to uncover friction points ([18:37]).

8. What’s Next: The Future of AI in CX

[19:46–20:57]

• Hyperpersonalized marketing offers tailored to each customer’s unique behaviors and needs.
• Predictive service: Fixing problems before customers notice them, harnessing broad and local trends.
• AI-powered employee coaching: “It’s not embarrassing because it’s AI…it’s like having a full-time coach that just cares about your success.” (John, [20:50])
• Goal: Elevate—not replace—human staff to make jobs more fulfilling.

9. Staying Agile and Ahead

[21:18–22:03]

• John’s three focus areas to stay agile:
  1. “Never stop listening to customers.”
  2. “Looking at the data…that maybe the customers aren’t telling me.”
  3. Keeping up-to-date with innovation and emerging technology—including allocating time daily for industry podcasts/articles ([21:18]).

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On embedding AI:

  • “AI has to be fundamental to the solution. It can’t be like bolted onto the side.” (John Durocher, [03:20])

• On empowering employees:

  • “Give them some budget so that they can fix things when they need to be fixed.” (John Durocher, [07:10])
  • “Accountability over blindly standing behind a policy is so powerful.” (John Durocher, [09:22])

• On transparency:

  • “Be willing to share when you’re having a problem. Be proactive about that.” (John Durocher, [13:23])
  • “Customers…are way more forgiving…knowing what’s going on, they’re not happy…but being in front of that.” (John Durocher, [15:10])

• On leadership modeling CX:

  • “Some very high-level person at Uber, literally does deliveries and…Uber rides…they do it regularly.” (Greg Kihlström, [18:37])
  • “If I’m a good neighbor or if I’m a good partner, why wouldn’t I bring [the garbage cans] in for them?” (John Durocher, [19:16])

• On the future:

  • “AI-powered coaching…It’s like having a full-time coach that just cares about your success.” (John Durocher, [20:50])

Additional Resources

• Learn more about Calix and John Durocher via the show notes.

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:18] – John Durocher’s career background
• [02:30] – Calix’s approach and philosophy to AI
• [04:29] – Real-world AI applications in CX (anomaly detection, hyperpersonalization)
• [06:46] – Empowering employees and the importance of culture
• [07:49] – Airline empathy story: employee empowerment in action
• [10:21] – Balancing automation and human touch
• [13:23] – Building and maintaining trust and transparency
• [17:15] – Simplifying the customer journey with AI and leadership buy-in
• [19:46] – The future of AI in customer experience
• [21:18] – John Durocher on staying agile and ahead

This episode is packed with actionable insights and first-hand stories illustrating how leading B2B organizations can harmonize AI, employees, and operational processes to deliver exceptional, trustworthy customer experiences—now and in the future.