Service economics have long depended on headcount. Scale meant higher cost, and capacity constrained performance.

AI changes that.

This week on The Modern Customer, Matt Price, Founder & CEO of Crescendo, explains how AI expands capacity and connects service directly to business outcomes.

Instead of charging per seat or hour, Crescendo ties pricing to measurable results. When teams treat service conversations as engagement opportunities, more than half involve buying intent — and repeat visits increase.

In this episode, you'll learn how organizations:

• Turn service interactions into buying moments

• Increase repeat engagement and loyalty

• Move beyond seat-based economics

• Scale service without proportional headcount growth

If you're thinking about how AI fits into your customer service strategy, this episode is for you.

👉 Watch the full episode and learn more at www.crescendo.ai

This episode is sponsored by Crescendo.

Blake Morgan was called "The Queen of CX" by Meta. She is a customer experience futurist and author of three books on customer experience. Follow Blake Morgan on LinkedIn

For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Learn more at www.blakemichellemorgan.com

New data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index reveals nearly a decade of stagnation, a narrowing gap between top and bottom performers, and rising loyalty. Together, these shifts point to one conclusion: customer experience is converging.

In this week's episode of The Modern Customer, Forrest Morgeson, Director of Research at the American Customer Satisfaction Index, explains what this means for leaders heading into 2026.

As AI accelerates and economic uncertainty persists, differentiation becomes harder to sustain and more critical to get right.

If you're shaping your 2026 strategy, this conversation offers a clear, data-backed perspective on where competitive advantage is tightening — and where leaders should focus.

🎧 Listen to the full episode.

Access the full ACSI report to evaluate what these trends mean for your competitive position: https://theacsi.org/news-and-resources/blog/2026/02/17/the-shrinking-distance-between-the-best-and-the-rest/

Blake Morgan was called "The Queen of CX" by Meta. She is a customer experience futurist and author of three books on customer experience. Follow Blake Morgan on LinkedIn

For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Learn more at www.blakemichellemorgan.com

Customer conversations generate value. Yet most organizations never connect that value to action.

Context gets lost across channels, and next steps never connect to downstream systems.

This week on The Modern Customer, Ali Tore, RingCentral's SVP & GM of Conversational AI, shares how agentic voice AI closes that gap. He outlines why organizations must move beyond isolated automation and build systems that coordinate conversations, context, and follow-through across every touchpoint.

If you want AI to drive real customer outcomes — not just efficiency — this episode is for you.

👉 Listen to the full episode on The Modern Customer and explore the RingCentral Agentic AI Trends 2026 report to go deeper.

This episode is sponsored by RingCentral.

Blake Morgan was called "The Queen of CX" by Meta. She is a customer experience futurist and author of three books on customer experience. Follow Blake Morgan on LinkedIn

For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Learn more at www.blakemichellemorgan.com