In this special season recap of CX After Hours, our host Anya Kelly revisits six standout moments from the podcast’s first six guests - and shares what each conversation taught her about building better customer experiences.

From Eli Weiss on protecting the human side of CX and investing in your agents, to Michael Bair on why strong teams need clear metrics and accountability. Cati Brunell Brutman explores how CX leaders can turn overwhelming amounts of customer feedback into action, while Leeor Cohen challenges the instinct to solve every problem by buying a new tool.

Anya also reflects on Caroline ON Wilson’s perspective on the emotional labor behind customer experience, and closes with Aleni Mackarey on why CX and marketing need to operate as closely connected parts of the same customer journey.

Along the way, Anya shares lessons from her own career and the recurring idea running through the first season: great CX isn’t just about answering tickets. It’s about understanding customers, supporting the people serving them, influencing the wider business, and identifying the small changes that can make a disproportionately big difference.

Whether you’ve listened from episode one or you’re discovering CX After Hours for the first time, this is the perfect introduction to the conversations and ideas that shaped Season One.

Plus, a preview of what’s coming next when CX After Hours returns September 9, starting with Naomi Oriol of Freebird and a conversation about what AI means for traditional CX metrics, ticket categorization, and understanding the why behind customer conversations.

CX After Hours is the podcast for CX leaders and operators in retail and ecommerce who are in the trenches scaling customer experience to drive real growth. Powered by Yuma AI, the show goes beyond polished talking points to explore the trade-offs, pressure, and decisions that shape whether customers come back, spend more, and stay loyal.

Learn more about Yuma AI: https://yuma.ai/

Marketing makes the promise. But when the product, delivery or service fails to live up to it, CX inherits the consequences.

In this episode, Anya Kelly and Guillaume Luccisano are joined by Aleni Mackarey, Vice President of Client Success at Base Beauty Creative Agency. Across more than a decade in beauty and wellness marketing, Aleni has worked in project management, agency marketing, operations and client success - including serving as Chief Operating Officer.

Together, they explore why customers don’t experience marketing, ecommerce and support as separate departments. They experience one brand—and every campaign, product page, email, review and support interaction either builds trust or erodes it.

The conversation covers how customer feedback can shape products and campaigns, what brands can learn from TikTok and Reddit, creating reviews and UGC without making the relationship feel transactional, and how AI can support customer listening without replacing human judgment.

They also discuss why difficult conversations often build stronger relationships, the value of curiosity when receiving negative feedback and what it really takes for a brand to keep the promises it makes.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/f8dlATwaykE?si=hD4f8nCsLBLg84Ml

Subscribe to the podcast via email on our website, and get new episodes delivered directly to your inbox: https://yuma.ai/cx-after-hours

Follow the hosts:

Guillaume Luccisano: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guillaumeluccisano/

Anya Kelly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anya-kelly/

Follow this episode’s guest, Aleni Mackarey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alenimackarey/

CX After Hours is the podcast for CX leaders and operators in retail and ecommerce who are in the trenches scaling customer experience to drive real growth. Powered by Yuma AI, the show goes beyond polished talking points to explore the trade-offs, pressure, and decisions that shape whether customers come back, spend more, and stay loyal.

Learn more about Yuma AI: https://yuma.ai/

Great CX is not always about giving the customer more.

A refund, replacement or exception can completely change a customer's relationship with a brand. But when generosity becomes the default, CX teams risk making expensive decisions without enough context — while agents are left trying to work out the right answer ticket by ticket.

In this episode, Anya Kelly and Guillaume Luccisano are joined by Caroline ON Wilson, Director of CX at Carpe, to talk about the balance between customer care and business reality.

They discuss why maximum generosity is not always great CX, how leaders can identify the moments where an exception actually matters, and why agents should not have to reinvent the decision every time a difficult customer lands in the queue.

For Caroline, “clarity is kindness”. Clear boundaries around refunds, replacements and exceptions give agents the confidence to exercise judgement without constantly wondering whether their manager will back the decision.

The conversation also explores the limits of SOPs, how to coach teams through the grey areas of customer experience, and how AI could help agents create more distance from emotionally charged conversations.

A practical conversation about generosity, judgement and building a CX team that knows when to bend the rules - and when not to.

Chapters:

05:35 The Vent: Customers are mean

08:23 Finding the Goldilocks zone in CX

13:36 When should you go above and beyond?

16:39 Clarity is kindness: Stop reinventing every decision

22:08 You can't put a human into an SOP

26:14 How to route and track complex CX decisions

30:17 The 10% Fix: Have a dance party

35:00 Reading customer tone and sentiment

41:17 How AI creates emotional distance

45:35 Why CX leaders need to prove the ROI

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jFeFY4Vo75Y?si=5j3xrGpZ-MTNKyRh

Subscribe to the podcast via email on our website, and get new episodes delivered directly to your inbox: https://yuma.ai/cx-after-hours

Follow the hosts:

Guillaume Luccisano: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guillaumeluccisano/

Anya Kelly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anya-kelly/

Follow this episode’s guest, Caroline ON Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-on-wilson/

CX After Hours is the podcast for CX leaders and operators in retail and ecommerce who are in the trenches scaling customer experience to drive real growth. Powered by Yuma AI, the show goes beyond polished talking points to explore the trade-offs, pressure, and decisions that shape whether customers come back, spend more, and stay loyal.

Learn more about Yuma AI: https://yuma.ai/