Making CX work for your business!

Customer Experience Professional with a love of customer loyalty and red wine. 

Paul Bichsel

For years, customer support platforms were systems of record.

Tickets in. Tickets out.

What stood out at SKO 2026 was how clearly that thinking has changed.

Zendesk is now positioning itself as a system of action.

That means the platform is no longer just routing questions to humans.

It is actively resolving issues through AI, agents, and built-in feedback loops.

One platform.

One view.

Resolution as the outcome, not ticket handling.

This shift matters because it changes how CX teams design workflows and how leaders think about scale.

If you’d like to learn more about AI + CX + Zendesk, you can download the CX trends report from us.

👉 Download the full CX Trends report via the link in the comments below.

Customers want to know why AI makes the decisions it does. AI transparency is no longer optional; it’s expected. As AI becomes a natural part of service, consumers demand clear, plain-language explanations for automated decisions.

✅ 95% of consumers expect an explanation for AI-made decisions
✅ 80% of CX leaders say AI transparency will be non-negotiable within two years
✅ Zendesk agents are 1.3x more likely than non-Zendesk agents to say trust and transparency is a top expectation

Transparent AI builds trust, strengthens loyalty, and turns automation into a competitive advantage.

Learn more in the Zendesk #CXTrends 2026 report.

👉 Download the full report using the link in the comments.

Personalization without memory isn’t personalization at all.

AI with contextual memory changes the entire customer relationship.
Not by being clever, but by being consistent.

When systems remember preferences, past issues, and timing, customers stop feeling like tickets and start feeling known.
That continuity is what turns good support into long-term loyalty.

The real shift here isn’t technology.
It’s expectation.

Customers now assume brands will remember them.
The brands that don’t will feel instantly outdated.

👉 Download the full CX Trends report via the link in the comments below.

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Most CX teams obsess over the fix. But customers don’t remember the fix.

They remember the first hour.

When something breaks, customers don’t just want a resolution…
They want speed, clarity, and (now) they expect AI to help, not get in the way.

Because here’s the truth:

If your chatbot, help centre, socials, and support teams all say different things…
You don’t have a support problem.
You have a trust problem.

✅ The most important window in an incident isn’t when engineering ships the patch.
It’s the first 60 minutes.

That’s when customers decide:
“Do I trust you… or do I churn?”

So what should happen in that first hour?

One source of truth.
One page.
One message.
Clear language.
Timestamps.
No guessing.

And AI needs guardrails.
Not random troubleshooting.
Not confident nonsense.
Just one job:

Direct customers to the single most accurate update.

Different channels. Same answer.
That’s real omnichannel support.

If you’re leading CX right now, this is the game:
AI-powered support at scale… without losing consistency or control.

🎤 I’m speaking on a Zendesk Customer Spotlight webinar with RMS Cloud + SuccessCX:
Support to Strategy: Leading CX in an AI-Driven World
📅 11 February 2026

Link in the comments. 👇

Customers don’t think in channels, so support shouldn’t either.

Multimodal support reflects how people naturally communicate.
They explain, show, and clarify in the same moment.

When text, images, video, and voice work together in one thread, resolution speeds up and frustration drops.
No restarting. No repeating. No context loss.

This isn’t about adding more tools.
It’s about removing friction from how customers explain problems.

👉 Download the full CX Trends report via the link in the comments below.

Speed is no longer a differentiator. It’s the minimum requirement.

Customers are drawing a hard line between brands that resolve issues immediately and those that don’t.
And they’re voting with their feet.

AI-driven support only works if it actually solves the problem.
Automation without resolution doesn’t save time. It wastes trust.

The winning teams are building systems that retrieve the right knowledge instantly and apply it accurately.
Fast answers. Fewer handoffs. No dead ends.

👉 Download the full CX Trends report via the link in the comments below.

When conversations don’t carry over, everyone pays for it. ⏳🔁

Customers repeat information. Delays creep in. Teams aren’t doing less — systems just aren’t connected, so people spend time reconstructing context instead of helping.

A unified approach with Zendesk Suite keeps conversations moving forward, not restarting. That’s how you reduce friction and get back to supporting customers.

Big thanks to the SuccessCX crew for helping organisations make that connection. 🙌

#ZendeskAI #ZendeskAIAgents #CXTrends #CustomerExperience

https://lnkd.in/gHbjZx7K

Building AI for construction - on a mission to eliminate the trillions lost to miscalculations, errors, and inefficiency in construction 🧱🏗️

Experienced from being a tech founder and an intrapreneur in startup growth & strategy, partnerships & sales and app development. International digital nomad with experience from living in Sweden, the US, the UK, Germany, South Africa, Italy. Vipassana Meditator :-)

Lucas Otterling

WOW. Last week, we announced Brickanta's $8M seed round with backing from investors across venture capital, construction, real estate, AI, and sports, with which I feel honored to be working.

We didn't expect the level of reception:
+20 features in Nordic, European and American media 📰 

Our book-a-demo website crashed and was out for 2h on the first day: if you had a bad experience on brickanta.com, sorry - please don't hestiate to reach out directly to me to connect! 👋 (we are prioritizing Nordic builders on the waitlist right now)

Billboard at Times Square in my favorite city, New York City 🌆

AI for the built world is happening now - couldn't be more excited to be working with the stellar founding Brickanta team and our first-generation partner-customers 🧱

Special thank you for all the messages, likes, comments and support - we’re still just getting started, Day 1! 😁

Co-Founder @ Brickanta (YC F25) 🧱 AI for Construction

Tips på Kontor / Office i Stockholm? 🏢

Det växande Brickanta-teamet är på jakt efter vårt nästa hemtrevliga kontor! 🧱

Östermalm/Gärdet, eget utrymme för upp till 10 pers, möblerat eller ej, gärna nära taxa 3 parkering. Bokar visningar under vecka 3 och siktar på inflytt omgående.

Tack till Dagens Industri för uppmärksammandet om Brickanta nyheten :-)

Det svenska startupbolaget Brickanta utvecklar en AI-plattform för byggindustrin. Nu tar bolaget in drygt 70 miljoner kronor från bland andra Northzone, och Lovables grundare Anton Osika.
”Nu kan vi betala ut lön till oss själva”, säger vd:n Lucas Otterling till Fastighetsnytt. https://lnkd.in/dGHwsJnN

Open article: Deras AI-bolag lockar eliten – tar in 72 miljoner by di.se

Grundarna Lucas Otterling och Linus Bein Fahlander.

Deras AI-bolag lockar eliten – tar in 72 miljoner

Proud of the Brickanta team for getting ISO 27001 certified in record-time - it helps to have all the security and data thinking in place from day 1 🔐 😊

NEWS: Brickanta is now officially ISO-certified according to ISO 27001:2022 🔐

The certification is a testament to the trust our partner-customers place in us. 

In our journey to let society’s builders focus on building, Brickanta already has and will continue to handle massive amounts of data. Our partners can therefore rest assured that we are dedicated to protecting sensitive information and handling data with the utmost level of security - it's at the core of what we do.

Now let’s go back to building! 🧱 
(shoutout to Noru for the support!)

Excited to be welcoming Pete Koomen to cold, wintery and buzzing Silicon Valhalla this weekend! ❄️🚀

Thanks, SSE Business Lab and Y Combinator, for arranging!

If keen to join, apply here https://luma.com/5s0gac77

Pete Koomen (Y Combinator) kicks off his Stockholm tour at SSE Business Lab.

On Sunday we are hosting a dinner and fireside chat with Pete and Lucas Otterling (Brickanta), SSE Business Lab & YC alumni.

Join us to hear the stories and experiences from two YC founders (and one turned partner) in an informal off-the-record setting.

Apply to join. Spots are limited.

Pizza on us, vibes on you.

Builders in my Stockholm network (or even elsewhere for anyone who can travel in for the day after securing a spot!)  - you don't want to miss this.

Henrik Hansson, Pete Koomen and Y Combinator have all individually had a huge impact on my personal and Brickanta's startup journey.

YC partner Pete Koomen is visiting KTH this month for an off-the-record talk with Henrik Hansson, KTH alum and CEO of Vesence.

They’ll talk about startups, Stockholm, and how the AI boom is unfolding in Silicon Valley.

Learn more at https://lnkd.in/e_cansUy

Founders actively working on a startup can also sign up for a one-on-one coffee chat with partners Pete Koomen and Christopher Golda here: https://lnkd.in/emKDdCXE

Enjoyed chatting with Mimi Billing at Sifted earlier this week about Brickanta's seed round and why Europe, and the Nordics in particular (Silicon Valhalla!), is the perfect home turf for us and innovative ConTech AI! 

“Europe is actually the perfect place for us to start. Here, you have common building regulations and a much higher degree of digitalisation in northern Europe. In the US, there are less federal building protocols, so in Europe, all that regulation is a huge advantage for an AI that reads and checks construction documents.”

Europe editor and business developer at Sifted | 100 Women in Tech in Europe 2025

The non-sexy business cases are continuing to excite VCs. Contech AI startup Brickanta has just raised its $8m seed round from Northzone's most prominent partner Pär-Jörgen Pärson, Lovable's cofounder Anton Osika as well as the founders from Tandem Health and angels from Meta, OpenAI and Google. 

 For the YC alum Brickanta, after having tested its AI in 11 markets it has decided to kick things off in northern Europe.

“Europe is actually the perfect place for us to start. Here, you have strict, common building regulations and a much higher degree of digitalisation in northern Europe. In the US, there are no federal building protocols, so in Europe, all that regulation is a huge advantage for an AI that reads and checks construction documents,” cofounder and CEO Lucas Otterling tells me.

Link to article in the comments.

Massive congrats to the Listen Labs team and the world of user research.

Feel fortunate to have had the chance to build alongside and be inspired by Alfred Wahlforss and Florian Juengermann for years - from seeing them launch early AI experiments from their college dorm rooms to figuring out go-to-market and go-lives with iconic brands!

Keep it up, excited to see the next phase! :-)

AI-led customer interviews for UX and insights teams | CEO & Co-Founder @ Listen Labs

We just raised $100,000,000 from Ribbit, Sequoia, Evantic, Conviction, and Pear. 
But it almost didn’t happen.

For nearly two years, Listen Labs did not look like a rocket ship. After our pre-seed, we spent ~18 months in what felt like limbo.

Models were super unreliable, customers were unsure and we struggled to hire. Every startup problem you can imagine - we felt it.

About 9 months ago, it finally clicked.

Since then:
• Revenue has grown 15×, crossing 8 figures.
• We’ve interviewed over 1 million people
• We now work with hundreds of enterprises, including Microsoft, Sweetgreen, and Perplexity

So what’s driving this?

Traditional research costs $50-100k and takes months. So teams skip it and guess.
Then they spend millions - on products nobody wanted, campaigns that don't land, messaging that misses. Listen lets you have hundreds of real customer conversations in hours - so you actually know before you commit.

More importantly, the outcomes are speaking for themselves.
• Chubbies interviewed >100 kids and discovered why an existing product wasn’t working, redesigned it, and launched a new line that quickly became a top seller.
• Teams at Microsoft went from waiting 6–8 weeks for research to getting answers in days directly in customers’ own words.
• At Sweetgreen, outlier customer insights led to protein-forward menu items that now shape how they think about new launches.

Ribbit led because they were customers first - and somehow our top-performing sales reps, unpaid. We owed them a round.

Grateful to the team that kept going when the outcome was unclear.
Back to work.

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