March 10, 2026, marked the second annual Wisconsin Customer Experience Symposium hosted by the UWEBC. The event brought together CX practitioners, business leaders, and thought leaders to share practical insights and real-world examples.
Throughout the symposium, participants, both virtual and in person, explored how to unlock the power of customer experience. The focus: driving long-term success, differentiating brands, and delivering measurable ROI.
The morning kicked off with a powerful presentation from Jeff Toister, bestselling author of The Service Culture Handbook. He explored the challenges of traditional, task-oriented service and what it takes to shift toward a true service culture—one where employees are motivated to go the extra mile.
Jeff highlighted three key ways culture influences employee behavior. First, transformation begins with a clear vision, a “north star” that defines the desired experience. Next, organizations must build intentional employee engagement plans that connect team members to the company’s success. He emphasized the distinction between enthusiasm and true engagement: while enthusiasm is temporary, engagement drives lasting impact. Finally, he discussed the critical role of alignment, starting with leadership. When leaders send mixed messages, it erodes the passion employees naturally bring to their work.
Jeff concluded by reinforcing that building a service culture is a long-term commitment, one that can fundamentally reshape an organization around the experience it aims to deliver.
Building on this idea of CX as a strategic driver, our second keynote speaker, Ty Givens, Founder & CEO of CX Collective, explored how CX is no longer just support; it’s leverage.
Ty centered her talk on what she calls the “innie problem,” the disconnect that forms when CX teams are siloed from the rest of the organization. This separation creates a gap between the systems that generate problems and the teams responsible for solving them. The result: CX teams operate in a reactive, ticket-by-ticket mode without addressing root causes.
With only 13% of organizations effectively translating customer insights into company-wide action, Ty emphasized the unique advantage CX holds: it surfaces issues before other parts of the organization. She encouraged teams to look for patterns across interactions rather than treating each one in isolation, to turn metrics into meaning rather than simply filling dashboards, and to transform reporting into influence by connecting insights to outcomes the business cares about.
Through this shift, the voice of the customer becomes a strategic tool rather than a support function, positioning CX as a true business advantage.
Extending this conversation, the CX technology panel explored how the right tools can enable, rather than define, the experience. The panel featured Siva Balu (Quartz Health Solutions), Nicole Joraanstad (TDS Telecommunications), Christopher Neuharth (Children’s Wisconsin), and Lisa Pavelski (TruStage).
Siva emphasized the importance of developing CX as a foundational, aspirational capability so that future technologies align with and support that vision. Christopher discussed the role of AI, noting its value in handling tasks that do not add direct value to customers. At the same time, he stressed that AI should not be relied on to fully generate customer-facing answers without human oversight.
Nicole shared how AI can support agents by providing real-time information on services, benefits, and troubleshooting, enhancing efficiency while preserving the human element. Lisa closed by addressing the risk of bias in AI systems trained on flawed data. She emphasized that organizations must clearly understand what they are offering customers; without that clarity, even well-intentioned tools can fall short.
The event concluded with Lightning Talks from University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty members Katie Gaertner, Xiaoyang Long, and Giustina Parisi, who shared research and insights on CX.
Katie explored the risks of misunderstanding the distinction between roles and tasks, particularly when leading in the context of AI and complex service environments. Xiaoyang presented research on customer behavior, showing how online operational design shapes the overall experience. One key takeaway: offering customers two well-curated recommendations is more effective than overwhelming them with options.
Giustina challenged a common assumption, that most organizations have a customer understanding problem. Instead, she argued, they have an organizational translation problem. Journey maps become artifacts, insights sit in reports, and CX efforts stall before driving real decisions. Her call to action: shift to a modern approach that links operational metrics to insights and brings cross-functional partners in earlier.
If this year’s symposium made one thing clear, it’s that customer experience is no longer a support function—it’s a strategic advantage. Join us on March 9, 2027, as we continue the conversation at the next Wisconsin CX Symposium. Members can keep these conversations going until then in our Customer Experience Peer Group events starting this month!