CX Experts Expose the Ugly Truth Behind Customer Journey Orchestration

Why connected journeys remain broken in 2026, and what it actually takes to fix them. 

CX Today's Rhys Fisher is joined by Adrian Swinscoe (Punk CX), Jeannie Walters (Experience Investigators), and Robert Bradshaw (WiserOwl) to tackle one of CX's most persistent frustrations: the gap between the promise of orchestrated customer journeys and the fragmented reality most customers still live with. 

The technology is often ready; the organizations aren't. This roundtable cuts through the noise on why journey orchestration keeps failing, and what leaders need to do differently. 

Data misalignment is the root cause. CX metrics and actual cost structures rarely line up, making it nearly impossible to accurately value or fix broken journey stages. 

AI amplifies what's already there. Layer it onto a fragmented journey and you accelerate the damage, not the fix. 

Ownership is the elephant in the room. Until financial accountability is tied to journey performance, CX loses the internal prioritization battle — even when every team's KPIs are green. 

Brilliant basics beat big promises. Consistency and reliability build the trust foundation that makes orchestration actually stick. 

Map a real customer journey with your data team — find where friction lives. 

👉 Visit cxtoday.com for more on CX strategy, AI, and journey orchestration.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Hello and welcome to CX Today. I'm Reese Fisher, Associate Editor, and today I'm delighted to be joined by quite a few people actually. I'm joined by Adrian Swinsko, the CX consultant for Punk CX, Jeannie Walters, the founder of Experience Investigators, and Robert Bradshaw, the founder of Wiserl. Thanks so much for all coming together and matching up our time zones a little bit to make this work.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Thank you. Nice to be here too.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Great. So today we're going to be talking about kind of customer engagement systems more generally, you know, which have had traditionally been presented as these connected end-to-end customer journeys where everything works together in perfect harmony. But you know, we know that perhaps isn't always the case. We're seeing customers are still kind of feeling those gaps quite often. They're still having to repeat themselves. It isn't perhaps always delivering on that promise. So I guess what we're going to do is I guess unpack why that is and maybe look at whether 2026 is perhaps the year where that gap does start to at least close a little. So I wanted to start here by hearing from two of you guys who have, I think, quite different perspectives on the problem, which is always interesting. You know, Robert from the practitioner and consultancy side, working with organizations trying to turn orchestration into kind of operation, and then Adrian from more of an independent analyst and commentator side, you know, perhaps tracking the gap between what vendors promise and what enterprises actually experience. So, Robert, I want to start with you. In your experience working with organizations on journey orchestration, where does the breakdown most commonly occur? You know, is it the technology, the data, the organization structure, or is it perhaps something else entirely?

SPEAKER_03 2:00

It's a good question, Reese, and um and thanks for having me here today. Um, one of the I think one of the big challenges that's been hard to deal with uh for the organizations I've dealt with, it's it's really boiled down to the data. Um, and more specifically, uh it's what I call data misalignment. And um what I've seen is the metrics that are used to measure activity in CX don't align um in a one-to-one basis with the cost of those of those CX activities. So that really creates a lot of uh a lot of challenges because what ends up happening is uh they can quite easily misvalue um what they're trying to fix. And when it comes to you know uh uh trying to optimize uh a customer journey or to try to uh achieve greater cost efficiencies, that data misalignment is what I've seen as the the root of the problem.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I can see that makes a lot of sense. Adrian, I wanted to come to you next. Obviously, I mentioned earlier vendors have been kind of promising these connected customer journeys for years now, but perhaps haven't been able to fully deliver. Why do you think the market hasn't been able to solve this yet? Is the technology perhaps generally not there yet, or is is there another reason behind that?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Um well thanks Reese, and and I think I really like kind of Robert's comments. Um but on your question, I I do think that in many ways the the technology has been there for a while. Um, but I'm not sure that companies are necessarily ready for it. So as Robert talks about, there's a data readiness perspective, there's a technological architecture readiness. But you also Robert also mentioned uh a comment around kind of misalignment, and I think misalignment is the is a key kind of word, and I think it's there's a number of different dimensions to that. One is there's a misalignment between what journey orchestration is from a customer's perspective and also what it means from a from an organization's perspective. Um, because oftentimes I still think companies get caught in that idea of we want to control how you do business with us, and we want to control the journey rather than actually just responding to the journey that customers go on. So because journeys are just generally not linear. The um if we think about people, we're just we're random, right? And we do things in piecemeal fashion and things. And I'm not sure that organizational operations are necessarily attuned to that because we come at it from a very process and defined way of doing things. I want to build on the kind of the misalignment thing because there's not just that misalignment around understanding of orchestration, there's also misalignment across an organization around what are we focus on doing. And I think one of the biggest problems that organizations have is that internal alignment around what is it that we're trying to achieve and why, and how do we work together to achieve to achieve that. And I'm sure Robert has come across this in the you know in in his work, but I think that's one of the key soft factors that overrides many of these hard factors. Because if you don't get that right, then a lot of these things just become a lot harder kind of when you when you start to actually prime uh put orchestration in place.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Yeah, yeah. I really like that idea of perhaps trying to be too controlling of the customer journey. I think that's a really interesting angle. I think it's yeah, it's an area you could attribute to a lot of areas in life, isn't it? Kind of strike that balance between you need certain guardrails, you need certain rules, but at the same time, if you're uh over the top with that, you can end up doing a little bit more harm than good sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

So just to stick with you for a second, Adrian, you know, I want to kind of maybe focus a little bit more on some of the vendors we're seeing in the space around us. You know, we're seeing Salesforce, Genesis, Zendesk, NICE all kind of pushing towards this uh unified engagement platform. Do you think consolidation, you know, when done right, it does actually perhaps fix this orchestration problem, or does it, you know, maybe just move that complexity elsewhere?

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Um so I do think the kind of consolidation in terms of the tech the technology technological vendor sort of landscape, uh, I think it could help, but I think it's further complicated by the fact that you mentioned, you know, Salesforce and you mentioned Genesis, and you mentioned kind of NICE, and you mentioned Zendesk, but we can also throw in there oh Adobe and CSG and a whole bunch of other people that operate in slightly different sort of domains. And unless you're actually thinking about how do you cover or address orchestration across marketing sales and service, then I think then it could be uh get more complicated. So, where does the complexity move? That's a really good question. I have no idea. Um, but it's definitely a moving kind of target, I think. I think the technology, if you get it right, can facilitate that. Um, because I think the the the evolution of the technological platforms are such a in such a way that they are increasingly being able to solve for some of this. But I still think that I come back to that misalignment. If we don't understand what it is we want to deliver and why, and then work backwards from that and then think about what tools and technological platforms we need in order to facilitate that, what data we need to populate kind of uh that uh those platforms in order to deliver that, then I think we end up getting a little bit unstuck. So it's I think the tools are there, but I think we need to be smarter in terms of picking what tools we need and and and for what kind of reason.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I completely see where you're coming from. If that misalignment still exists, it kind of doesn't matter what comes after that to a certain extent. I guess we've spoken a lot there, I suppose, about some of the main reasons that journeys do break. So perhaps the natural next step is to go from diagnosis to impact and kind of examine what organizations are losing when their engagement capability doesn't kind of translate to a coherent experience. Jeannie, I want to start with you first, perhaps coming from more of a strategic program building perspective. When you go into an organization to assess their journey capability, what are perhaps the most common signs that the orchestration ambition exists, but maybe the operational reality hasn't quite caught up? What does that maybe look like on the ground?

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Well, I would totally underline and emphasize what Adrian just mentioned about the whole idea of we can't treat technology as the solution. Technology is a tool in our toolkit. But if we are starting from a place where there isn't a strategic vision, which is what I usually see, we don't have a real strategy around customer experience in most organizations. We say things like we're going to orchestrate the journey for the customer, but then we don't connect the dots around things like what I see all the time in B2B is we treat billing and procurement and all that as like separate. Like that's not really part of the journey. And those are huge parts of the journey when you talk to the customer. And so I think we have to get really clear-eyed about who are we and what are we trying to do, and what is the actual experience for the customers. So when we see that breakdown, not just in the strategic vision, but also in things like, well, let's not count this as part of the journey, then we're really selling our customers short. And we see this show up in perception gaps too, right? Like there's the famous one from Bain years and years ago about 80% of executives think they're killing it with customer experience, and only 8% of their customers agree. And now just recently, um, in the medallion state of CX report from this year, they said 66% of brands believe their CX is improving, and only 17% of the customers agree. So we have to get real about what we're doing. And when it comes to technology, we can't just say like, this is this is the one, right? Like we're gonna plug this in and everything's gonna go smoothly. It's capable of amazing things now when the data is aligned, when we have the right kind of intent behind it. But what I'm seeing is we're amplifying what we what we kind of think about customer experience with this technology. So we have to get really clear on that.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Yeah, that's a really good point about kind of treating technology almost separately as opposed to just part of the whole system. I guess leading on from that, Robert, you know, that there's a version of this problem that is about the technology we've touched on a little bit, whether that's fragmented stacks, no unified data layer, integration debt, but there's also a version that's more about ownership, you know, where no one single team is accountable for that end-to-end journey. Which, I guess, would you agree with that first of all? And if so, which one do you think one of those is more important or more difficult to fix?

SPEAKER_03 11:36

You know, I believe that uh I think that technology has always been the easier fix. Um, not that it's easy, but relative, you know, uh things being relative, I think technology has has been an easier solution. And really the way in which I've seen that manifest is uh organizations can really uh and some can do a really good job at it, but I think what they do is they use technology as a means of outspending their problems and and and trying to use that technology as a means to get ahead. Not that they're trying to get ahead for the long term, they're trying to get ahead. Let me get through the next six months, let me get through the next 12 months, you know, what you know, what are my what are my you know, what are my KPIs uh kind of thing. Um for certain, I think ownership, ownership has always been the elephant in the room. Um and that's always been the the really difficult challenge. And um, you know, and I we may talk about this uh in a little bit, you know, but the idea of how can CX elevate its role in the organization to really be looked at upon as my words are you know, how can they be seen as elite, right? They they are you know they they they are the ones that have the right answers. You know, we need to be talking to CX to understand um how we can best apply you know all these all these new technologies. Um and and these um it's not really end-to-end, is it's all encompassing um, you know, the the the the challenge of taking these solutions to where you're syncing data, which they can do today, to actually taking the the CRM, which knows what's happened to, for example, CCAS, which is the here and now, and not syncing the data, but actually making intelligent decisions about what's going on without needing human intervention. And so, you know, I think that all of that, while it is technology, goes right back to ownership.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Yeah, I think that's a really important point there around perhaps sometimes organizations trying to spend their way out of trouble a little bit. We hear more and more of these stories of these organizations or CX teams that feel like pressure almost to introduce the newest technology, even if it's not necessarily the right fit for what they're trying to do at that time. And I guess on that subject, and I think we we might have already hit a record here because it's 2026, we've been speaking for 15 minutes and we haven't mentioned AI yet. Um, but I will move on to it. Um, Jeannie, I wanted to come back to you. Do you think perhaps there is an agentic AI dimension here that's being maybe underplayed? You know, if organizations are able to layer AI onto the journeys that are already broken, perhaps at the process level, are they accelerating that problem or do you think is that a way to solve it?

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Um I think it's it's not necessarily a yes or no question. It's really about understanding the nuance of what are we trying to do and will AI help us do that? But I think AI will amplify whatever you do. And so if you are approaching customer experience as this is a cost center, this is something we have to really um limit, then that will show up once you kind of put the AI layer on top of it. And right now, unfortunately, I think fragmented journeys are still the norm. I think we still have the issue with ownership, we have the issue with data alignment. Um, I see sometimes we have these really robust customer data platforms, but only 10% of the you know, field force is using it. And so that creates a big problem. So you have to really look at what are the things that are maybe not working as well as you want, and then where can you pilot with AI and where can you test it? Because we need that, like AI is amazing. I'm a big supporter. I think that it can help us scale these insights in ways that we can't as humans, but we have to make sure that it has human leadership right now. And I think there are it's so tempting to see those early results when it gives you those amazing insights and it finds the needle in the haystack and it allows you to make better decisions. It's so tempting to be like, it's working, everybody. Let's just go with it. And then a month later you realize, oh my gosh, it's pulling information from old knowledge bases or somebody answered a question wrong and now it thinks that's what you should do. So we really need to have not only oversight, but leadership around it that is connected to the overall customer experience. So it can't just be, I love my technology people, but it can't just be a technology person. We have to work in conjunction with that and make sure we're looking at this in a constant way, because otherwise it will just amplify the things that maybe you don't want it to.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that, the importance of that human aspect there, Jeannie. So I think that is an area I wanted to unpack a little bit as well, kind of the the human cost of this technology, you know, what customers actually experience when journeys aren't connected, and what it means for the frontline agents, I guess, who are increasingly being asked to maybe bridge that gap that technologies and processes haven't quite got right yet. And Adrian, I wanted to come to you first on that. You know, customers are being told, you know, explicitly or implicitly that organizations know them, they remember them, and they can anticipate their needs. But when the reality doesn't quite match up to that promise, how much damage do you think that does? Is that expectation gap actually getting wider even?

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Um I think it is. I think the danger, well, there isn't it's not a danger, I think it's actually happening. Um you know, there's fascinating. There's a there's a piece of research from a few years ago that said that the that asked customers and agents what was their greatest frustration. You know what that came out number one? The shared sort of like frustration was having to repeat oneself. So customers are most frustrated with having to repeat themselves, and agents are most frustrated with having to ask customers to repeat themselves. So that's been around for like a long time. Now, all this new technology can transfer you know context over and inform kind of people and things. And if we can go the I think I guess what I'm trying to say is that too often I think that we get caught up in this idea of building this kind of Behemoth kind of promise the world sort of solution when customers kind of have and agents have real pain points kind of now. I have this kind of thing that that I say, which I think is, and sometimes it confounds people, it makes their eyes kind of roll around because they don't actually understand what I'm trying to say. When I say the future of customer experience is always built in the present. And what I mean by that is that it speaks to this tension that exists in organizations. The one is there's this, um, and about prioritization. And one is that organizations always want to be investing in new technology to innovate and to build for the future. But they've also got to attend to the problems that that customers have today, because that's the place that you nurture relationships and then you build on, you get you gain permission or you earn permission to build on that relationship tomorrow. The problem is that many organizations fall in the trap that they're always building for tomorrow and they overlook what's happening today. But the people that lead their fields that are still delivering these great, these great experiences, which set the benchmark for what customers expect from everybody else, manage that conflicting priority, right? They're attending to these problems today, but also building kind of the uh for the the for the future. And so, given all of that, I do think the gap between what is happening and customer expectations is growing. And um and it has an impact. We see the impact in the figures. Like Jeannie talked about the the idea that um there's about three uh two two-thirds of businesses think they're they're they're they're killing it with their customer experience, but only 17% of their customers agree. Um, and that manifests itself in fragile loyalty. Uh, a number of customers will kind of like will churn after a poor experience if they're not locked into some sort of contract. It creates also failure demand because people then go in and try and solve the problems, but then they can't, and then they have to try again through another another kind of channel. That just creates extra workload, which isn't kind of necessary, etc. etc. etc. So it all goes on, but I just do think there's this thing around we've got to I come back to this idea that it has a real impact, but we have to try and manage those competing uh priorities, attend to the problems that people have today because they are your customers and they're paying you money here and now, and then build but but also building for something better for tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Can I add to that? Um I I just think that it's a great example of it's so tempting to focus on innovation and the future. But if you don't get the basics right with your customers, then they're not going to stay loyal. And I think a lot of organizations, especially with long histories and legacies, you know, they say to me things like, Well, we know we've got some work to do, but you don't understand, Jeannie. Our customers love us. And I'm like, Yes, you have a segment of your customers who love you today, but you're not thinking about what if a disruption happens. And the last big disruptions of the last several decades have all been experience based. And so it If you're not trying to focus on disrupting your own industry, somebody else is right now. And we can't just get complacent about well, we've got all this great technology, and and our our journey is orchestrated on the inside. We have to look at exactly what's happening with customers today and get really real about that. Because to Adrian's point, they will not stick around. And I think that a lot of organizations just take that for granted.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Can I just kind of come out? I want to build on what Jeannie's kind of saying because I want to like and double underline it when highlight it and all these different sort of things and blow it up into big capitals. Because I think there's that there is this idea that you know, we talk about we need to surprise and delight our customers. And that's the thing. We want to reach for this outstanding experience. But if we think about it from a human psychological perspective, actually our best friends, the the the the or the people that we have the best and uh closest relationships are the ones that are reliant, credible, you know, that they show up when you need them to show up, et cetera, et cetera. They're not just fly by night type of uh type of things. And I think being brilliant at the basics is can be this foundation of trust and reliability and credibility that will allow you to build this incredible foundation on which you can build. It gives you permission to do all these different sort of like things, the same with other relationships. And so it might not be sexy, but oh my god, does it pay? You get that in you know, in in truckloads. Um and that's the thing, it's but it it takes it's it's hard work and it takes time and it takes commitment. But if you think about the people that that people hold out as being the experienced leaders in their fields, and you really examine what they do, they do the basics brilliantly. Now, it's not what they think the basics are as a brand, it's what their customers think the basics are. And if you focus on that and you learn about that and you lean into that and you deliver to that, you're not gonna go far wrong.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

And tying it back to journey orchestration, it's consistency as well. You know that you don't have to call back, you don't you know that you don't have to repeat yourself because they're doing the basics really well. And so I think that that really, you know, when you when we get this orchestration right, part of it is that foundation that Adrian was just talking about of just getting all those basics right as well.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Robert, I was wondering if you wanted to jump in. Obviously, we we spoke at the top there about this kind of proactive engagement perspective. When the system does fail to act at the right moment, what does a cost look like, I guess, in real terms? And does the business usually actually see this?

SPEAKER_03 25:01

I think it's it's um challenging right now for the business to really get a firm grip on the costs. And and again, I think that that appeals back to the ownership challenge. But right now, I think that costs really manifest themselves more in the form of um unnecessary repeat calls than it does in churn or even missed opportunities. And a lot of these problems will be consumed by um they'll just be seen as an operational cost rather than a journey breakdown. And and that really stems back to I think the ownership is at the heart of this because of just to give a real straightforward example, you know, you've got your chief marketing officer, operations officer, chief customer officer, um, you know, IT, just name name any of them, right? Um, they all have their own KPIs. And even when even when they're sitting there and they all have green lights on their KPIs and everything looks great, right? Our customers love us, um, the journey can still be broken, which is why you say, well, 66% say we're really killing it, but only 17% of customers say, uh-huh. Um, it's I think it's because of the the ownership again, where everybody thinks they have a green light, but they really don't. And I think the costs right now are kind of falling through the gaps between between those things. Um, I mean, if we call it siloed uh organizations or whatnot, or siloed ownership.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Yeah, yeah, listen to you guys talking that that disconnect is really coming through as one of the the key issues here that organizations are going to have to address if they really are gonna deliver on the promise of this technology, I think. And Jeannie, I just wanted to come back to you. I know you you you talked about this a little bit just now, but when that journey orchestration fails, what does the customer actually experience at the other end? You know, and is that damage visible to the business or does it tend to go unnoticed?

SPEAKER_01 27:11

I think we can all relate to um what happens when that orchestration isn't isn't connected, because we've all been in those situations where we're in a chat that we can't get out of, right? There's no exit ramp, or they don't have a way for us to say, hey, this is, you know, you're giving me four choices and none of them are what I'm dealing with. And you're just in that loop. Um things like that happen. The other thing that I see is that we, you know, this is really a trust issue. This really is about making sure that every step along the journey is reflecting number one, what you promised me as a company, right? Like whatever that is. But number two, if I've already given you feedback, if I've already shared with you and you know that this is a known problem and you see it again and again and again, I mean, I have, you know, been so frustrated as a customer when you're you're given those surveys over and over and over again, and you literally say the same thing for five years. And not only does not do they not improve it, they don't even get back to you, right? So I think when we think about orchestration, we have to center it around the actual customer. And I think right now there's still a tendency to look at it inside the organization and say, how can we connect uh the sales data and the marketing data and this, instead of really thinking about what does this look like for the customer and making sure we're we're we're balancing those two ideas. We have to do what's right for the organization, but we also have to really think about what's happening with the customer. And that's that fragmentation shows up again and again if you're not aware of it.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Yeah, I think that's uh a really nice place to sort of end the main discussion there. I think speaking to all three of you, that's the other major point I think we can all take away is more focus on the customer. That appears to be where unfortunately a lot of organizations uh let themselves down perhaps. Um just to finish, I did have a couple of I guess almost quickfire questions I want to run by all three of you guys. Um Adrian, I'll start with you on this first one. You know, if you could remove one specific barrier, you know, one thing the organizations keep tripping over that would most immediately move them from fragmented campaigns to connected journeys, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 29:40

I would say alignment. An alignment at the very top. And if that requires that some heads need to be banged together to achieve the alignment and to agree, you know, where you want to go and why, and to and then to then get to the the the point where everybody's almost like pardon the um the expression singing from the same hymn sheet as it were, then I think it got then it speaks to then uh Robert's kind of point around ownership, because then people start to kind of go, well, we got alignment, now we understand who needs to do what and when, but I think that's the thing. If you if you solve some of that, I think a lot of the other things start to fall into place.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Yeah. Robert, uh same question too. I know it's a little wordy. I can I can repeat it if needed.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

Uh pretty much echoing it's it's uh the data misalignment. Um, you know, getting getting getting your data lined up is what's going to provide you the answers that you've been missing to to help bring about the discussions around ownership and really you know getting those ducks in a row.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

I think it's around having a real strategy around this, um, and making sure that you're treating customer experience like any other part of the business. Um, you have to know where you're going and you have to have that vision. And then you have to break that down into okay, how will we achieve that? And I think right now the hindrance to that is thinking, you know, let's plug this in and that'll solve all our problems.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Yeah, I think that's uh that's a common argument we've heard a lot lately, especially with AI. That's the AI silver bullet kind of myth has been uh very prominent, hasn't it? Um sticking with you, Jeannie, then just for our actual final question here, you know. Uh one actionable takeaway, I guess. What is the first concrete step that a CX leader should take, you know, this week or in the next few months to really start building genuinely orchestrated customer journeys?

SPEAKER_01 31:43

I think, you know, one of the things that I say again and again is start where you can, because I think it's very overwhelming to people. And sometimes it is, you might not be in the position to say, like, let's make sure all of our data is aligned. So start where you can. And that could be a pilot, that could be a small journey, and really looking at what's working here, what's not, and then orchestrating that as proof of concept to move forward into something bigger.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

So I would start by going and spending some time with either your data, your insights, or your research team. And I would I would ask them to help you map out the journey of one or two customers, let's say, to help you understand and to really see what a journey looks like and also how random it can be. Right? And then you can look at okay, where do the problems arise? You know, where is the friction? Where's the you know the pain for the you know for the customer? Where's the drop-off? All these sort of things, and then think about well, what can we do to support or to help or to improve sort of that? Because you could do all this planning for customer journey orchestration writ large, but actually you want to attend to some of the things where people are failing, kind of like now, and try and make those things kind of better. And if that helps you generate momentum and um breaks the bonds, these bonds of organizational inertia, and then he starts to can build on that sort of, I feel like a foundational level, which then you can start having a larger, more grander and a grander sort of like conversation about what orchestration could deliver for the for the for the business and what it looks like, then I think that's a great place to start. But I would start with the data because actually I think we need to open our eyes that and understand that journeys aren't linear. Um, I mean, but we need to start with the data and actually seeing what customers really do and where they go and how they what how they go about things, and then think about helping solve helping um support them in the moment.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Yeah, thanks, Adrian. I think that makes a lot of sense. That nonlinear journey argument, I think, is is a very important one. Um, and finally, Robert, for you.

SPEAKER_03 34:14

Um, you know, I think uh uh a great first starting point is the recognition that ownership follows financial accountability. And so the owner of journey orchestration is going to be that group that that is able to demonstrate that they have the command of that financial accountability. And one of the ways um organizations can can start uh demonstrating that is to be measuring the actual cost of, and I don't mean an average cost because that's part of the misalignment problem, but the actual cost of every customer journey and the ability to know what that cost is and even by by segment of journey. But even more importantly, you need to be able to demonstrate not only do I know the cost, but I know what it should cost. And oh, by the way, what it should cost is driven by our business, by our expectations of what that journey should be. And when you have those two pieces, you you now actually have the levers to be able to explain to the business how do we get from where we are to where we want to be, leveraging technology, leveraging process, leveraging our assets and our people in order to bring about that outcome that is going to bring us to that positive customer experience, the right experience. But we're also going to be doing it for the kind of investment or financial accountability that really makes the most sense for our organization. So start with recognizing that that ownership is through that financial accountability, and what do I need to do to start to demonstrate that I am the accountable organization?

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Absolutely. I think uh yeah, I think that's a really nice place to end things. Uh, thanks again so much for joining me, guys. I always really enjoy these conversations, getting to pick the brains of people like you who are, you know, experts in these fields, who are on the front line in a lot of cases. And yeah, I think it's going to be really, really insightful for our audience. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

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