A book on customer experience entitled Punk CX is bound to be entertaining, disruptive and provocative. Adrian Swinscoe made it also very insightful. With regard to Customer experience, frustration is overwhelming, customers want respect, it’s time to rock CX and get some service. Here’s what Adrian is telling us in this podcast recorded live on both sides of the Channel. In this recording, he discusses his approach to customer experience. The idea of being a Punk “is about going your own way, being brave enough to stand out from the mainstream, and not caring about being liked by everybody” he told me. Adrian believes “that this notion [of Punk] exists in all of us in some form or the other and the world needs more of the Punk mindset”. Let’s delve into this wild approach, smash a few guitars and get work done. Go ahead Punk, make my day! 
The following transcription of our interview only covers a portion of our exchange with Adrian Swinscoe. Our readers who would like to explore what all Punk CX has to offer can get their copy from Amazon or by clicking the ‘buy the book now’ button. 

The introduction to Punk CX talks about Progressive vs Punk Rock. What analogy do you draw here with CX?
To be fair, Progressive Rock had its own followers and is a very popular and influential rock genre in itself. The Punk movement was a reaction to that. Music was becoming increasingly filled with virtuosos, how many keyboards you can play at the same time and all this stuff. On the other hand, Punk was of the view that we don’t need a PhD to play music.
Punk was of the view that we don’t need a PhD to play music
We can just pick up drumsticks and a guitar and start making songs. It made me think about MySpace customer experience and the way it started to exhibit some of the same characteristics as Progressive Rock did back in the 1970s.
It was becoming quite complicated, more interested in itself and its constituents than anything else.
That’s when I started to ponder on what could a Punk version look like. Also, will it help us drive better outcomes with an injection of this DIY, democratic spirit and emotions, and ultimately culminate as a creative force.
You aren’t very impressed with transformation programs. Is there a need for businesses to be ‘transformed’
It is sort of poking the stick at the sacred cow, as it were. Everybody is talking about transformation, yet the data reveals that a lot of people who are doing it aren’t very successful and fail to hit their objectives. Hence, I am of the view that we could stop talking about transformation as we’re not transforming from a quantum state to another quantum state; more often than not, it’s almost a gradual change.
That’s why I was advocating that maybe we should talk about evolution – the thing that’s more likely to get us aligned with changing on a constant basis. A transformation is the same.
Everything is always going to change; it’s not as if it could stop. So why don’t we just get used to the idea that change is the constant, embrace it, and have that power of doing things rather than thinking about transformation?
Consumers want companies to take a stand on the social, cultural, environmental and political issues they care about
I admire companies that take a stand on something, but doing so comes with its own risks that you’re not going to always get things right.
That’s one of the main reasons why people or even brands don’t take stands,