‘For so long, we’ve thought about employees as very different to customers – and they’re really not,’ says Qualtrics Director XM Strategy

In 2025, “transforming experience is not just a nice to have, it’s essential for driving business growth” – that’s how Sally Winston, Director XM Strategy at Qualtrics, opened the experience management giant’s conference X4 in London.

UNLEASH dug in deeper in an exclusive conversation with Winston at Qualtrics’ X4 London event.

Winston shares with UNLEASH that in customer experience (CX) teams, “all of the conversations are about business transformation of some sort”.

Interesting, the biggest challenges are often linked with employees (whether it’s hiring, retention or upskilling as the business transforms).

However, often CX teams are siloed from employee experience (EX) teams within businesses, when instead, they need to work much more closely together then companies can figure out the secret sauce of “how to delight customers with employees in mind”.

“For so long, we’ve thought about employees as very different to customers – and they’re really not,” adds Winston.

Without getting EX right, CX is very difficult to deliver, stated Ken Hughes, the self-proclaimed King of CX in his closing keynote at X4 London.

There’s a gap between employee’s experiences and the expectations they have of their employers – and that is informed by their experiences as consumers.

The good news is that forward thinking brands are on board and working towards a reality where EX and CX work together collaboratively, and with the needs and goals of the business in mind.

X4 London showcased some of the Qualtrics customers leading the way – UNLEASH attended their sessions, and here are the top takeaways.

ING, Tesco, Currys and L’Oréal on driving EX success

The need to link CX and EX together came to the fore during a breakout session featuring leaders from retail giants Tesco and Currys.

Jonathan Parton, Head of Insight – Colleague at Tesco, shared on stage that he actually sits within the CX function, not HR.

He added that the multinational retailer actually runs the largest private sector employee listening program in the UK. The largest generally in the UK is the National Health Service.

While Tesco is having success with EX, “we can do better”, in the words of Parton. Looking forward, Tesco wants to shift its mindset around employees.

We need to view our colleagues, not just as colleagues, but actually as our most valued and valuable customers as well.”

On the same panel, Lewis Day, Customer Strategy Director at Currys, agreed that “we need to view our colleagues, not just as colleagues, but actually as our most valued and valuable customers as well”.

So, CX strategies need to start with employees.

Day added that Currys has a General Managers Academy to invest in managers, and this includes a whole module on CX to help them really move the needle for the customer.

Another priority for Currys is really ensuring that all experience programs (whether employees or customers) are rooted in benefitting the business.

Tesco’s Parton continued that with EX programs “we want to sure that we do those things it translates to commercial success”.

Networking at Qualtrics X4 London.

ING’s Global Head of Employee Listening Lucie Vottova stated during the Dutch multinational bank’s session that, as HR leaders, “we all know that how employees behave impacts the bottom line of the organization”, and there’s a need to close the loop with CX.

The banking giant has a fascinating approach to employee listening.

“The reason we listen is to take action”, shared ING’s Head of HR Strategy & People Analytics David Tregidgo on stage.

However, it is not possible to act to everything we learn from employees, noted Vottova, so ING is very intentional about how it can make the most impact.

For the bank, the data shows that the biggest impact comes from “addressing the systemic, structural issues that triggering those undesired employee experiences” at an organizational level.

Then individual country heads are responsible for trickling that down, owning those priorities locally, and driving real change for teams and individuals.

“You can have the best central implementation team and the best communications from the global [level], [but] if your local management team doesn’t deliver, there is no chance,” added Votova.

Beauty giant L’Oréal also took to stage at X4 London to share how it moved from strategy to action with employee listening.

Moïra Taillefer, Employee Listening Director at L’Oréal, shared that company had a problem with survey inaction fatigue.

The beauty company wanted to change that, while being agile and building a muscle for transformation.

L’Oréal’s Moïra Taillefer speaking at X4 London with Eric Blum from AKT.

L’Oréal uses its surveys to find out the stories behind the results – how can the employee voice drive bigger impact? What are the challenges that different teams are facing, and how can they be turned into opportunities to make a change?

The future of EX is AI agents

Of course, AI was a huge topic for Qualtrics at X4 London.

During his opening keynote, Qualtrics CEO Zig Serafin stated that tech tools are usually very good at managing transactions, but not necessarily at building connection.

“In the race to implement AI and to create efficiency, you have to be careful not to miss the big picture, the big opportunity, which is real connections”, added Serafin.

Qualtrics claims that their AI products, specifically the newest iteration: experience agents, are different from the other more transactional agents on the market.

They are “specialized, autonomous digital workers that bring a whole new level of intelligence, decision-making, actioning that’s tailored to the thousands of experiences that take place across the business”.

That means these agents can help organizations between understand their employees and their customers even better.

Qualtrics Zig Serafin on stage at X4 London.

In an exclusive interview with UNLEASH, Winston dug into why taking action is the top use case for AI agents in EX.

Agents have a role to play in “the more operational areas of experience”, like onboarding and employee self-service.

As an employee, you may not know where to go for certain information, “the agent can tell you, here’s a link, or we’ve sent a ticket to the IT team” – that is such a time saver.

Winston reminds UNLEASH of the need to think of EX in a multi-dimensional way – “not every aspect can be handled by an agent, of course”, HR and managers still need to be in the loop to handle the more cultural elements of experience, like career development or wellbeing.

There may still be nervousness from employees about AI agents, but “as people trial and experiment with this, that nervousness will go away”, and they will start to embrace the benefits that AI and thinking differently can bring.

That’s good news, as Winston’s closing thought on stage at X4 London was that in this AI-powered world, standing still is the same as going backwards. Employers cannot afford to not use AI to drive efficiencies, but they need their people on board to reap the true benefits.