DCX Links | April 27, 2025
CX Leadership Isn’t Optional—It’s the Advantage
Welcome to the DCX weekly roundup of customer experience insights!
If there’s one thing this week’s stories prove, it’s this: the old playbooks are done. In 2025, customer experience isn’t a department—it’s the differentiator.
We’re seeing a shift toward bold, human-first leadership. Whether it’s CEOs who sleep in their own listings, exec teams welcoming raw customer feedback, or CX teams learning hard lessons about deploying AI with intention—each story here challenges us to raise the bar.
Across every link this week, there’s a shared message:
→ Know your customer, not just your data.
→ Lead from the front, not from the dashboard.
→ And use tools like GenAI not to replace your thinking, but to sharpen it.
If you’re building the future of CX, you’re not just optimizing interactions—you’re shaping how your company shows up in moments that matter.
Let’s dig in.
Happy reading—and stay curious, DCXers!
-Mark
This week’s must-read links:
When Your AI Goes Off the Rails
Stripe’s Radical Openness
CX Needs a Seat at the Top
GenAI Prompts That Help You Prioritize What Matters
New Look, New Loyalty Moves
The Customer is Already Someone Else
When Your AI Goes Off the Rails
David Meyer at Fortune tells the wild tale of Anysphere’s AI-powered coding assistant, Cursor, which became a case study in what not to do when scaling AI in customer support.
The bot hallucinated a policy, posed as a fake employee named "Sam," and sent users into a frenzy with bogus logout explanations—leading to cancellations and a PR mess. With a $10 billion valuation in play, the timing couldn’t be worse.
CX Red Flag: Don’t Let AI Freelance
This isn’t a quirky glitch. It’s a credibility crisis. AI hallucinations aren’t just technical bugs—they’re trust destroyers. Especially when the customer thinks they’re talking to a human.
False confidence is dangerous. Cursor’s bot invented policies and answered authoritatively.
No human fallback = no accountability. Customers got ghosted or looped in AI purgatory.
Transparency matters. People hate being tricked by a machine.
Lessons CX Leaders Should Steal
Human-in-the-loop isn’t optional—it’s table stakes.
Make sure your AI can escalate, not just repeat.
Communicate clearly when a bot is handling the interaction.
Test under pressure. What happens when something breaks?
Apply It to Your Stack
If you’re thinking of deploying autonomous agents, ask yourself: what would happen if the bot lied with confidence? What systems would catch it? Who would clean up the mess?
Use Cursor’s misstep as your stress test.
🔗 Learn more→ Fortune
Stripe’s Radical Openness
Stripe’s CEO, Patrick Collison, recently revealed an unorthodox customer listening tactic: inviting a customer to the company’s bi-weekly exec meeting.
For the first 30 minutes, one customer shares feedback directly with 40 senior leaders.
Why It Matters
Forget filtered surveys. Stripe’s play here is raw, unfiltered perspective—straight from the source. Even with many feedback channels already in place, Collison says it “always spurs new thoughts.” It’s culture-setting, not box-checking.
What CX Pros Should Borrow
Get leaders in the room with customers. The people making strategy decisions need to hear the messy truth.
Make it a ritual. Feedback isn’t a quarterly activity—it’s continuous.
Signal it publicly. Collison shared this on X, reinforcing customer-first culture internally and externally.
Tension to Watch
Stripe’s indie users are vocal that the experience has declined. Some praised the initiative, others used the post to vent frustrations. One called the support “a mess.”
The lesson? Listening doesn’t count unless it leads to action.
Try This
Bring one customer into your next leadership huddle. Hear them out. Then decide: what would we change if this was the only feedback we got this month?
🔗 Learn more→ TechCrunch
CX Needs a Seat at the Top
In this short yet powerful video, Belgian CX speaker and author, Steven Van Belleghem, explores the evolving role of CX leaders and the increasing importance of customer experience in 2025.
He makes the case that the next era of business success will be driven by customer experience leaders at the highest levels—think CEOs, not just directors or department heads. In a world where product and price offer little room for differentiation, it’s the emotional experience that sets brands apart.
Why It Matters
In the age of AI and automation, it’s easy to lean into efficiency and lose the human touch. But companies that truly thrive will be those led by customer-obsessed executives—leaders who live the customer journey, empower teams, and make decisions that prioritize long-term trust over short-term gain.
CX Heroes in Action
Brian Chesky (Airbnb) uses his own platform and lives like a customer to stay grounded in the experience.
Sumit Singh (Chewy) talks about “pet parents,” not customers, and infuses empathy across the brand.
What CX Pros Can Learn
Leadership by example drives culture-wide customer obsession.
Great CX leaders spend real time with customers.
They empower teams to solve problems fast, with empathy and flexibility.
They’re willing to take short-term hits for long-term loyalty.
Try This
If you're in a leadership role, carve out time this week to experience your product or service like a first-time customer. What does it teach you? What would you change?
🔗 Steven’s latest book→ Diamond in the Rough
GenAI Prompts That Help You Prioritize What Matters
If you’re buried under CX initiatives and struggling to decide what to do next, this set of 32 GenAI prompts is your new cheat code. These prompts are designed to help CX professionals evaluate, prioritize, and communicate initiatives with greater clarity and speed.
Why It Matters
Time and resources are limited. These plug-and-play prompts guide your GenAI to deliver structured thinking around ROI, urgency, feasibility, and impact—without spinning your wheels in meetings.
Here’s a taste of the quality you can expect:
Evaluating project impact
“Generate a pros-and-cons list for [CX initiative], focusing on how it improves customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.”
“Analyze how [specific CX project] aligns with our customer experience strategy and long-term business goals.”
“List the key benefits of prioritizing [CX initiative A] over [CX initiative B], with a focus on customer impact and ROI.”
Additional Prompts help guide you with:
Feedback and collaboration
Managing resources and risks
Preventing scope creep
Staying agile when priorities shift
Communicating clearly to stakeholders
CX Pro Takeaway: The Power of GenAI as Your Co-Pilot
Using GenAI as a CX prioritization partner isn't about offloading thinking—it's about unlocking faster, clearer, more confident decisions:
Less spinning, more solving. Prompts cut through ambiguity so you can move from idea to action.
Faster alignment. Get instant clarity on how your initiatives map to business goals, customer impact, and ROI.
Sharper communication. Turn rough ideas into compelling narratives that resonate with stakeholders.
Smarter trade-offs. Use GenAI to explore ‘what if’ scenarios and see which projects deserve your team’s energy.
When used well, GenAI becomes a decision accelerator—not a decision-maker. It’s like hiring a strategist who never sleeps, always ready to pressure test your thinking.
Try This
Download the rest of the prompts, feed one of your top 3 CX ideas into the prompts this week. See what insights GenAI surfaces—and use that clarity to move your project forward with confidence.
New Look, New Loyalty Moves
American Airlines is giving its mobile app a facelift, and it's more than just a pretty interface.
The redesign, rolling out through May, focuses on making the journey smoother, more personal, and tightly integrated with the AAdvantage® loyalty program.
Why This Matters for CX Leaders
When your app becomes the airport, flight desk, concierge, and loyalty center—all in one—you’d better get it right. American is betting on personalization and intuitive design as the new flight path to customer satisfaction.
Smart Moves to Note
AAdvantage® goes front and center. Travelers get instant visibility into their status, miles, and upcoming perks.
Travel now + travel later. The home screen puts near-term and future trips in one place.
Live iOS upgrades. Real-time flight info hits your lock screen without opening the app.
Designed for delight. The new UI mimics other top apps for frictionless adoption.
CX Takeaway: Personalization Is UX Now
This is the new bar for travel apps: show me what I need to know, when I need it, without making me dig for it. American’s redesign aligns design, utility, and emotion—especially for loyalty customers.
Try This
Audit your app. Is the most important info front and center for your most valuable customers? Would a new user feel at home instantly? What if the app were the only way to engage with your brand—would it stand up?
🔗 More→ Source
The Customer is Already Someone Else
Michael Cooper’s deep dive into Consumorphosis™ redefines how CX professionals should think about customer identity.
Forget static personas and funnel logic—today’s customer shapeshifts. Multiple identities. Daily shifts. Fluid motivations.
Why It Matters
Most CX strategies are built for stability. But customers live in flux. Designing for the customer you think you know means missing the one they’ve become. This article reframes experience design for the liquid modern age.
Core Ideas You Need
Identity is now dynamic. Customers move through modes: executive, parent, athlete, nostalgic gamer—all in a single day.
Consumorphosis™ defined. Identity evolution is constant, contextual, and shapes how people engage with brands.
Marketing systems aren’t ready. CRMs, journey maps, and attribution models assume stability. That’s a flaw, not a feature.
What Smart CX Pros Should Do
Design modular journeys, not linear ones.
Build adaptive architectures that sense identity states.
Focus on enabling customer transformation—not just optimizing transactions.
Try This
Ask yourself: What if your customer’s primary identity changed three times today? Would your experience adapt? Or break?
Check out the full article and sign up for Michael’s newsletter:
Thank you!
I hope you found value in this week’s links. See you next Sunday at 8:15 am ET!
If this edition sparked ideas, share it with a colleague or team member. Let’s grow the DCX community together!
👋 Please Reach Out
I created this newsletter to help customer-obsessed pros like you deliver exceptional experiences and tackle challenges head-on. But honestly? The best part is connecting with awesome, like-minded people—just like you! 😊
Here’s how you can get involved:
Got feedback? Tell me what’s working, what’s not, or what you’d love to see next.
Stuck on something? Hit me up whether it’s a CX challenge, strategy question, or team issue—I’m here to help.
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Your input keeps this newsletter fresh and valuable. Let’s start a conversation—email me, DM me, or comment anytime. I can’t wait to hear from you!
— Mark
www.marklevy.co
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Mark, this is my favorite digest of useful CX news and insights. I find something useful in every issue. Thank you!