Season 3 – Episode 20: With John Seddon Welcome to the 100th episode of A Job Done Well—where we celebrate the art of calling out corporate nonsense and replacing it with something that actually works. This week, we’re joined by John Seddon, a management thinker so influential he’s got his own Wikipedia page (unlike James, who may or may not have written his own). John’s spent decades proving that traditional management—targets, incentives, standardisation—doesn’t just fail to improve performance; it actively makes things worse. John’s approach is simple: stop incentivising the wrong things. Most organisations reward behaviours that undermine their own goals. Engineers rushed to fix … [Read more...]
Will Artificial Intelligence Take All of Our Jobs?
Season 2 – Episode 41: What Do the Computers Think? In this episode, hosts James Lawther and Jimmy Barber discuss the impact of AI on contact centres and back-office jobs. This follows a question from Rob, a member of the audience, who asked about the potential for AI to reduce contact centre jobs by a claimed 80-90% in the next year or two. The hosts share insights from a former guest, Alex Alexander's AI team, and James interviews Google's Gemini to discover if the AI themselves believe they will put us all out of a job. This is all balanced with a bit of real-world experience of tech transformations. Check out the episode and see what they conclude - Are the robots taking … [Read more...]
Customer Service Isn’t Customer Experience (Here’s the Difference)
Season 2 – Episode 26: With Adrian Swinscoe. In this episode, we welcome guest Adrian Swinscoe, an author, researcher, and advisor on customer service and experience. Adrian challenges the underlying management beliefs that you should try to manage revenue, cost, and profitability and explains how you can create better organisational outcomes by focusing on your employees and customers. The discussion also covers the shortcomings of chatbots, artificial intelligence, and the desire to control “the customer experience”. It is all about inputs and outcomes. Listen in to find out more. Adrian Swinscoe Described as an experimental CX thought leader and visionary, Adrian Swinscoe … [Read more...]
What Is the State of Customer Experience Today?
Season 1 – Episode 25: Introducing the Four Questions Today, we start a series of episodes focused on answering the critical question –What Is the State of Customer Experience Today? As 81% of the UK's economic output comes from the service industry, understanding how to improve customer experience has never been more important. Every few weeks, we will be asking guests for their perspectives on the following questions: What's the state of customer experience? Why do you think that? Who provides a good customer experience? How would you improve the customers' experience? To kick things off, we will give our perspectives on these questions. … [Read more...]
The Surprisingly Simple Way to Find Cost Savings
Season 1 – Episode 21: James's Magic Formula This week, we unlock the mystery of cost savings with James's formula for making savings thoughtfully without damaging service—doubters, listen on! We argue that this is something we will all face at some point in our careers, so it's best to get on the front foot and do it the right way. James has spent decades (he is that old!) working out the most effective way of approaching cost saving, and here he shares his approach so you can avoid some of the mistakes we've made in the past. If you need help becoming more efficient and effective and reducing costs, contact jimmy@ajobdonewell.com or james@ajobdonewell.com. … [Read more...]