Are “silent complaints” killing your brand? (with Adrian Swinscoe of Punk CX)
About the show
Hosted by Nikola Mrkšić, Co-founder and CEO of PolyAI, the Deep Learning with PolyAI podcast is the window into AI for CX leaders. We cut through hype in customer experience, support, and contact center AI — helping decision-makers understand what really matters.
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Summary
Most companies measure CX through surveys, reviews, and dashboards. But there is real danger in “silent complaints”: the underwhelming experiences that customers never report, but quietly share with friends or that stop them from coming back.
In this episode of Deep Learning with PolyAI, your host Nikola Mrkšić sits down with Adrian Swinscoe — author, Forbes columnist, and host of Punk CX — to explore how AI is reshaping customer experience, and why technology alone won’t save you from these hidden risks.
They discuss:
- Why “silent complaints” are often more damaging than bad reviews
- How AI can surface insights from conversations that surveys and dashboards miss
- Why frontline employees still see problems before the data does
- How leaders can balance technology with humility, curiosity, and human insight
- What it really takes to deliver on the old promise of being “customer-obsessed”
Key Takeaways
- Bad service is universal — but solvable: Adrian argues that organizations often block employees from doing their best work, creating poor service experiences. CX must start with removing friction so customers can get simple problems solved quickly.
- Technology isn’t the culprit — design is: While 70% of customers want self-service, only 17% succeed. The issue isn’t tech itself but how it’s designed and implemented — a lesson PolyAI applies by building voice AI that truly works in real-world conditions.
- Silent complaints are killing brands: Most customers don’t voice dissatisfaction — they simply don’t return. Both Adrian and Nikola stress the importance of listening to frontline staff and real conversations to uncover hidden pain points.
- Vision over tools: Just as Michelangelo envisioned David before carving stone, businesses need a clear CX vision before deploying AI. PolyAI aligns with this by leading with desired customer outcomes rather than tech-for-tech’s-sake.
Transcript
Nikola Mrkšić
00:04 – 00:50
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of deep learning with PolyAI. Today with me, I’ve got Adrian Swinscoe of Punk CX, And, kinda looking talking, I’m really excited about this one.
And in general about your role, and kind of, like, the role of kind of, like, just looking at CX in relation to technology and what it can do to promote a better interaction between companies and their and their customers. There’s a lot to it.
I’d love to hear well, first off, welcome board, and I’d love to hear, you know, the background story of how you ended up doing what you’re doing.
Adrian Swinscoe
00:50 – 01:40
I left the corporate world in 02/2004. So as of the day of recording, it’s, you know, September 2025, And I’ll have been working independently now for twenty one years.
And so during the first few years of that, I was just doing various sort of consultancy sort of jobs. Some of it was still in that kind of corporate venturing space.
Nearly bought a steel company as part of that. So, I mean, that’s another story for another day.
But when I was thinking about that whole thing and I thought, well, actually, I need to do something that I really care about or even focus on something that I really care about or something I wanted to change. It struck me that I don’t like bad service.
You know?
Nikola Mrkšić
01:40 – 01:44
What experience prompted it? There must have been one pivotal one.
Adrian Swinscoe
01:44 – 03:05
Oh, no. No.
No. It’s just an accumulation of things.
Like, having kinda built and developed sort of, like, things that had employee and customer value at their hearts in the past. It always kinda struck me that it’s oftentimes organizations get in the way of their people doing a good job.
Right? And so that’s why I wanted to say it’s like, well, actually, let’s see if because I have this idealist utopian sort of view of things that if we make services you know, bad service is tough for the people that are trying to do well by the customers, and it’s tough for the customers. And it affects us all.
And I thought, well, actually, why don’t I kinda try and investigate this, look into it, try and come up with clues of how we can do that. And so since about 02/2007, 2008 through to now, I’ve written all comers, over a thousand articles, four books, had a podcast since 02/2011, do a lot of talks, all blah blah blah, all these different things.
I’m still finding clues. And increasingly, over the last few years, a lot of it’s involved technology in terms of thinking about how we can use technology in the mix to try and drive those better outcomes.
Because that’s all ultimately, the thing that I’m really interested in is how do we drive better outcomes for our customers, our employees, and then ultimately our businesses.