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The AI-Ready Customer Experience Playbook with Ty Givens (Part 1)

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🎧 Episode 179: The AI-Ready Customer Experience Playbook with Ty Givens (Part 1)

In this conversation, Ty Givens, founder of CX Collective and CX Collective Advantage, shares her journey from corporate leader to entrepreneur, and how she’s helping companies transform customer chaos into streamlined, scalable operations.

With more than 25 years of experience leading customer support teams at See’s Candies, Thrive Causemetics, Shoedazzle, and Herbalife, Ty has seen firsthand what it takes to balance operational wins with the very human side of leadership. She opens up about the reality of scaling with AI, the emotional cost of self-doubt, and the frameworks she’s built to help leaders rise with clarity and confidence.

We explore:

  • Why “AI doesn’t solve chaos, it scales it”… and what to fix before automating
  • How Thrive Causemetics cut resolution times from 10 hours to 4 minutes
  • The LOOP Method, and how leaders can turn concepts into actionable playbooks
  • The emotional toll of being promoted before you feel ready
  • How to build self-trust and combat imposter syndrome in leadership
  • Why meeting people where they are matters more than pushing shiny tech
  • The overlooked role of empathy in scaling customer experience

🔑 Key takeaways:

  • Broken systems can’t be automated into excellence, fix the foundation first
  • Efficiency without empathy is a short-term win but a long-term loss
  • Self-doubt is part of growth, it’s what you do with it that matters
  • Great leadership is equal parts process and people

đź’ˇ Quotes to remember:

“AI doesn’t solve chaos. It scales it.”

 â€śYou can’t make people fit the technology, you make the technology fit the people.”

 â€śSelf-doubt isn’t a disqualifier. Inaction is.”

 â€śEvery great leader was once unprepared for their first big role.”

đź“š Resources mentioned:

✨ Learn more about Ty’s work:

www.cxcollective.com

www.cxcollectiveadvantage.com

📲 Connect with Ty:

 LinkedIn – Ty Givens

A rising tide raises all ships, and I invite you along on this journey to Evoke Greatness!

Check out my website: www.evokegreatness.com

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Speaker 1:

The first thing is to understand what it is that you want it to do. What particular problem do you want it to solve? You have to think of it like an employee. I know that sounds weird, but the same way that you have to instruct an employee, you have to instruct AI. The same way you have to tell them exactly what you want them to do. You have to tell it to AI, and then you'll also find out how good you are at delegating, because what you get back might be really strange and you're like that's not what I meant. So you want to have an idea of what it is that you want to get from it to begin with, and then you want to make sure that you, as the subject matter expert, that you have the information ready and available in a way that AI can digest it.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Evoke Greatness, the podcast for bold leaders and big dreamers who refuse to settle. I'm your host, sunny. I started in scrubs over 20 years ago doing the gritty, unseen work and climbed my way to CEO. Every rung of that ladder taught me something worth passing on lessons in leadership, resilience and what it really takes to rise. You'll hear raw conversations, unfiltered truths and the kind of wisdom that ignites something deeper in you your courage, your conviction, your calling. This show will help you think bigger, lead better and show up bolder in every part of your life. This is your place to grow. Let's rise together.

Speaker 2:

In part one of the AI-Ready Customer Experience Playbook, my guest Ty pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to scale customer experience without breaking your business. From why AI doesn't solve chaos, it scales it to the playbook that helped thrive cosmetics slash resolution times from 10 hours down to just four minutes. Ty blends hard-won operational wisdom with the human side of leadership self-trust, clarity and the courage to grow. Before you feel ready, get ready for a mix of strategy and soul that will change the way you think about customer experience. Now let's hop into it.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to another episode of Evoke Greatness. I'm thrilled to have Ty Gibbons, founder of CX Collective and a mastermind behind CX Collective Advantage. With more than 25 years of hands-on experience in customer support, building high-impact teams at brands like See's Candies, thrive Cosmetics, shoe Dazzle and Herbal Eye, ty combines deep operational know-how with a heart for leadership development. Ty's work isn't theoretical, it's battle-tested. She helps businesses tame customer support chaos into scalable, high-performing operations Through tools like process optimization, automation and help desk transformation. Her clients see measurable gains Think 10 times faster resolutions, workflow automations and peak client retention. Her on-demand learning platform, cx Collective Advantage, is a lifeline for CX leaders aspiring to lead with clarity and confidence. With courses taking less than two hours, guided by the practical loop method, ty helps leaders build real, actionable playbooks. No fluffs, just tools and results. Whether harnessing AI to scale or navigating the emotional turbulence of self-doubt and imposter syndrome, ty sits to the intersection of strategy and the deeply human side of leadership. So dive in as we explore her insights, frameworks and inspiring journey. Ty, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's my pleasure. I am looking forward to diving in, and the place that I really like to start is finding out more about what got you to travel down your current path. How did you come to the current version of yourself?

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow, okay. So honest truth, I won't say my last corporate job it's my second to last but I worked so hard in that role and I felt like I was on that treadmill trying to, like you know, reach that dangling carrot and I could never actually feel like I accomplished anything and that was hard. And so I actually went out on my own because one I love results and so once I check something off, like I really genuinely feel good about it and I want to celebrate that, just even if it's for two seconds about it, and I want to celebrate that just even if it's for two seconds. I wanted to give other leaders what I wish I had when I was in that role. So I was at a startup that was scaling really fast.

Speaker 1:

As you mentioned in my background, I came from larger companies, but I really like the scrappiness of the startup, but they don't have the budget or the resources to actually like get the results that they want. So, although you know they make good hires, they're like we're ready to mature, let's get someone with experience. Once I get in there, the last thing that they want to hear is that, as an expensive hire, that I need more resources. They're like that's what you're here for. So basically, I was like I'm never going to work that hard again for anyone other than myself, and I'm going to build the team to work with me, to go into companies and to build out these operations in a way that will allow them to scale but, at the same time, won't break their bank. So that's literally how this came about.

Speaker 2:

Wow, you say that AI doesn't solve chaos. It scales it. You want to unpack a little bit about what that means and how can leaders prepare their foundation before layering on that?

Speaker 1:

automation? Sure, yeah. So I know that. You know we hear AI and some people are like, oh my gosh, my job's going away. There are going to be some parts of different roles that will be eliminated, but there are going to be other parts that are going to be. You don't have your resources aligned properly, you don't have your documentation, because the knowledge management part is key and critical to the AI world. It's not going to go well. So I think that sometimes people think like I'll just use AI to do this thing, you fill in the blank and after that everything's going to be fine. Well, if you have a bad process documented, ai is just going to pull from that bad process and that's what it's going to tell all of your customers. So if you want to do it right, you need to make sure that you have your information properly outlined and structured and it needs to be written in a way that AI can understand so that it can speak on your behalf. And that is what the new jobs look like, at least for now.

Speaker 2:

And what does that look like Because I think that is a relatively new idea is bringing this automation of this AI into your business. There's so many different directions you can go, but how can people start to dabble, like get a little bit more comfortable with it, because some people are really resistant to it?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know, I actually have a playbook for that, by the way. There's a way to do it. The first thing is to understand what it is that you want it to do. What particular problem do you want it to solve? You have to think of it like an employee. I know that sounds weird, but the same way that you have to instruct an employee, you have to instruct AI. The same way you have to tell them exactly what you want them to do. You have to tell it to AI, and then you'll also find out how good you are at delegating, because what you get back might be really strange and you're like that's not what I meant. No wonder people get confused when I send them, you know whatever.

Speaker 1:

So you want to have an idea of what it is that you want to get from it to begin with, and then you want to make sure that you, as the SME, the subject matter expert, that you have the information ready and available in a way that AI can digest it.

Speaker 1:

And then, once you do that, or as you're doing that, a good idea is to leverage the team members around you who could potentially feel impacted by this, and the reason why you want to do that is you want them on the journey because they're going to be essentially teaching AI and you want to show them that, even though you're showing AI how to do this, it's going to make mistakes and I need you to correct it, so they're a part of it. And it's another thing to remember is that you're showing AI how to do this. It's going to make mistakes and I need you to correct it, so they're a part of it. And it's another thing to remember is that you're never actually done, so you're going to always have to iterate on it. It's not like a one time. Let me just make this change and let AI handle it. No, like, your job is just, it's different, that's it.

Speaker 2:

You have really brought some transformational results to companies you've worked with. Related to the customer experience, thrive Cosmetics saw their resolution time go from 10 days to four hours, which is a pretty staggering amount of time to decrease. By what practical changes and mindset shifts made that possible?

Speaker 1:

practical changes and mindset shifts made that possible. Yeah, you know I am a process person, so with that particular situation, a lot of what was happening is when I came in there, they were actually looking for a full-time leader. I got referred by one of my former direct reports and I went there and I was like, hey, I can do it, I can come in because the manager had left. They needed someone to like head up and kind of get them going. It's like I can do it but, like you know, I can't work here because I have other clients but I can help you. And so in assessing the team, everyone was doing their best work but there wasn't a lot of strategic vision and guidance. So imagine you're getting just a lot of strategic vision and guidance. So imagine you're getting just a bunch of requests coming in and you don't have like a good schedule, staff plan, expectation. People are just kind of jumping in when they can. That's sort of what was happening.

Speaker 1:

So my background's in workforce management, which is about getting the right people in the right place at the right time, and so I actually started with that Like, do we have schedules that are aligned to when our customers expect us to be there. That's one. The next thing that I looked at is what are people reaching out about? So you know, this was Thrive Cosmetics was boy, it was about seven or eight years ago, because I've been in business for nine years, so call it seven or eight years. I wanted to understand what the contacts were about and then which one of those were things that we could do nothing about, and instead of actually responding to those, let's just, you know, automatically respond because you can't really do anything anyway.

Speaker 1:

And then I started to segment different request types to different people.

Speaker 1:

So, for example, if someone wanted recommendations on you know product lines and things like that that they needed, I got it to people who were, because they hired a lot of makeup artists and so the makeup artist is a very different support person than a normal support person.

Speaker 1:

So I had to separate that group so that we had the people who were like you know, legacy support people actually handling the transactional and operational things Where's my order, different details like that and then have the makeup artists actually fill in and start answering those questions. So as soon as we started to divide it, then we knocked off a few of them by getting things answered very quickly, just everything just kind of opened up and that queue just came down, down, down, down down and then eventually because at that time I felt like they were using a combination which sometimes companies do that like they'll get more than one help desk they were on, I think, help Scout and they were on Gorgeous, and then eventually we moved them on to Zendesk and I think they might have left Zendesk then. But that's what we did and we're agnostic, like a partner with everyone. So whatever works for the client is what we do.

Speaker 2:

And you oftentimes put the human side before the tech side, which is part of what you do. How can teams prioritize trust and clarity and structure before relying on the different types of technology or tools to enhance that customer experience?

Speaker 1:

I think at the end of the day, I mean, we're just people, right? So when you're talking to someone, if they're reaching out to you because they need help, or even if you're dealing with someone internally, like it's, you know, it's the golden rule you treat others the way that you want to be treated, and so it's important to remain open and listen and ask questions that are going to help you to hopefully get to some sort of resolve or at least a better understanding, and to never come into it with any judgment. And they've been with us. I'm looking at my board boy, I don't know, three years now and they've been around for a long time and they are some of their processes and their systems are pretty old and they had had challenges when they brought people in, because the people that they brought in made them feel like they were doing something wrong and they were saying you don't, you guys don't do that Like you just meet us where we are and you work with us.

Speaker 1:

And it's like, well, yeah, I mean I used to run customer care for See's Candies and we used to call that a 90 year old startup. So of course I understand when you have, like at See's at one point we had I don't know what they have now, but an order processing system from the 70s, and so you learn to just to be humble, that you know there's no right way to do anything. It's about the better way for that particular situation and for that group of people, and that's really what I focus on. At the end of the day, once I understand what it is we're trying to do, then we can figure the technology to meet it. We don't try to make the client meet the technology.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a great example because there are a lot of companies who you know. I think it's no secret that there's some technology platforms or AI like it's expensive and so that investment in that could be significant, and so they may not have the most up to date, but I think being able to meet them where they are and work with them is actually what probably gets a lot of the buy in.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I really do. And you know, I remember what it's like. So when I worked inside of companies as an employee, I was limited to whatever systems and tools they had. So I'm using their systems, their tools to try to figure things out, and you know. Then you go somewhere else and you're like, oh my gosh, like when did they introduce this? So I know what it feels like to like constantly be in that space of like continuous learning.

Speaker 1:

And I, you know, there was a point in my career when I was younger where I would be intimidated by something new. Now I'm like, look, I only know what I don't know. Every day something new is on the market. Show it to me, let me see, and then I'll figure it out. You know, if someone tries to partner, the first thing I tell them is that you know we can look at the product, but I can only recommend it if you are a fit, because I care too much about the client experience. I'm not a salesperson, I am a customer experience person. I'm a customer service person. So I genuinely lead with like making sure that people are happy. With the feeling of that, everything else just comes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you walk the walk, especially in your line of business. Right, when you're working with your customers, you want their experience to be equally where you hope to get their business 100%.

Speaker 1:

I mean I've had where vendors have like really like cut me out of deals and have like impacted our finances. We're a small team, right, but at the end of the day, the client is what matters to me the most, because that relationship, that's the person that's going to recommend us to someone else, that's the person that's going to talk about how we perform. The vendor doesn't really care too much about us. What they care about is our ability to get people on their product, and so I'm trying I always try to be transparent, like commit to anything for you, but you know, if it fits, it fits.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, speaking of just like the methods that you apply when working with some of your clients, I would love to deep dive into the loop method, and that's something that you teach in your courses, but can you walk us through the different stages and how can listeners take that and maybe apply it to something you know right away?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So as a person who hates training which is weird because I'm developing effectively trainings, but really playbooks, right. And so the idea is that I personally am an impatient person when it comes to learning. I'm a trial and error Like. I like to just go in there and figure it out first, and then I'll be like, oh, how does that work? Like after I've already tried it and failed. That's how I learned. I taught myself Excel by dissecting my old boss's formulas. That's how I learned it. So I'm just that person who's going to pick something apart. So what I wanted to do was create a space where people could get and resources to things that everyone else expects them to know. A good example when you are heading up any team, really, but my experience is in customer experience and support. So you're heading up a support team it's their first time, maybe at director's level and they're like, hey, we need a budget. And you're like, yeah, and then you're thinking like what the heck goes into a budget? Like I don't, I don't even know where to start, and so I have a playbook for that now. So I wanted to make sure that people didn't feel like it's a bad thing to not know. You just haven't gotten there yet.

Speaker 1:

When I was 24 years old, I got my first management job at Intuit. I was 24. My boss would tell me that I wasn't strategic. Well, of course I'm not strategic. I'm 24, right. So now what do I do? I try to help leaders figure out how to think strategically, because no one taught me any of these things. I went to the school of hard knocks.

Speaker 1:

So with the loop method, idea is that you get introduced to a concept Like, for example, we're talking about AI, everybody is discussing it. Very few people know how to leverage it Right. So let's first dissect what is AI? How can you use it, what are some use cases? And then, in that use case, we go into the observe piece right, and that's where we're going to do actual examples of how other companies have done it. So now you're not just hearing it conceptually, but you're like oh, this is how they applied it.

Speaker 1:

And then we add into that workbooks, and the workbook is actually something that we break up for you. So you're now gonna own it, meaning you learn the concept. This is how they did it. Now, how are you going to do it? So we're asking you questions along the way so that at the end you can prove the impact. So the idea is that you're going through and you're actually building a playbook. In the end, you download the playbook and guess what? You have now A plan to roll it out, and so it is so useful, like most of the playbooks, will take about two hours to fill in, but you can stop and start as much as you want. I've seen people go through 16 playbooks in one month and that's cool to me. I mean, if you have time to get through a wonderful, we're introducing new ones every month. So the idea is that there's always going to be something, and if you don't find what you need, then just ask for it, because it could either be in the works or we may be willing to just build it.

Speaker 2:

Okay, this is where we hit the pause button. That was just the beginning of my conversation with Ty. In part two, we dive into the human side of customer experience leadership imposter syndrome, building self-trust, and why there's no single right way to deliver customer experience. Plus, ty shares the one piece of wisdom she wants every leader to carry with them. Make sure to come back next week for part two. If today's episode challenged you, moved you or lit a fire in your soul, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with somebody who's ready to rise. Could I ask you to take 30 seconds to leave a review? It's the best way to say thank you and help this show reach more bold leaders like you, because this isn't just a podcast, it's a movement. We're not here to play small, we're here to lead loud, one bold and unapologetic step at a time. Until next time, stay bold, stay grounded and make moves that make mediocre uncomfortable.

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