Doe aanvraag Menu

Sydney Brouwer’s keynote on Customer Experience @ SAP Innovation Day for CX

Thank you for visiting the SAP Customer Experience Day @ Circuit F1 Zandvoort! Below you’ll find the the AI summary of Sydney Brouwer’s keynote on Customer Experience. You will also find a short AI generated podcast with the highlights of the keynote.

Summary Keynote Customer Experiments

  1. Major Theme

Title: CX = Customer Experiments

In this keynote, Sydney Brouwer reveals why traditional approaches to customer experience (CX) are failing—despite growing investments in tools, software, and CX teams. The problem? We treat CX like a complicated issue, when in reality it’s a complex, ever-changing challenge.

The central message: CX no longer stands for Customer Experience—it stands for Customer Experiments. In a world shaped by experience inflation, expectations rise faster than most companies can adapt. To stay relevant, organizations must stop planning and start trying: small, safe experiments that lead to surprising outcomes—often better than planned.

  1. Subthemes and Chapters
  2. The Paradox: More CX Investment, Worse Results

Sydney opens with a striking contradiction. Global CX Quality is the lowest in years, even though we’ve never spent more on improving them. What’s going wrong?

  1. Experience Inflation: Todays surprise will be tomorrow’s expectation

Belevingsinflatie (experience inflation) is the invisible force raising the bar. Customers continuously expect more—driven by technology, society, and other companies. What used to be a “wow” quickly becomes a “must-have.”

  1. Complicated vs. Complex: You’re approaching CX the wrong way

Sydney introduces the distinction between complicated and complex problems using the metaphors of a Rubik’s Cube and parenting.

  • Complicated problems have known steps and experts to solve them. Outcomes are predictable.
  • Complex problems—like raising kids or delivering standout CX—have no predictable formula. You can only understand them in hindsight.

Customer experience, says Sydney, is decidedly complex.

  1. Why Plans Don’t Work in Complexity

Sydney contrasts two mindsets:

  • Complicated problems: Analyse → Plan → Execute
  • Complex problems: Experiment → Improvise → Learn → Adapt

AI is taking over the complicated tasks. What remains are the human challenges—messy, emotional, unpredictable. This is where customer experiments come in.

  1. The Plus One Method

Sydney introduces the plus one: a small addition, action, or experiment that’s just big enough to learn from—but small enough to carry limited risk. If it works, scale it. If it fails, drop it. Either way: you learn.

Examples:

  • A mortgage company puts front- and back-office teams in one room for a week. Faster case resolution, better communication, and new ideas emerge.
  • A tech company builds a customer community without asking HQ for permission. It works so well, it’s later rolled out globally.
  1. Improvisation: Magic Isn’t in the Script

Sydney shares the story of the iconic Indiana Jones sword fight scene—completely improvised because Harrison Ford had food poisoning. What was supposed to be a long fight became one quick shot. It worked. Why? Because everyone involved said “yes” to the unexpected.

In CX too, we often get better-than-scripted results when we improvise instead of waiting for permission.

  1. The Game: Penguins, Mechanics, and Mindsets

Sydney invites the audience to practice improvisation live through a storytelling game. The hidden lesson? The energy of a story depends on mindset.

He outlines three:

  • “I want it my way” → resistance → dead stories
  • -1 – Mindset → blocking, sabotaging, draining
  • +1 – Mindset → building on ideas, sparking innovation

This reflects how teams either kill or elevate customer experience through their behavior.

  1. Inspirational Quotes
  • “CX no longer stands for Customer Experience—it stands for Customer Experiments.” — Sydney Brouwer
  • “We learn more from doing than from thinking.” — Sydney Brouwer
  • “A plus one is small enough to go unnoticed, but big enough to learn from.” — Sydney Brouwer
  • “Better than Imagined results happen when we build on each other’s ideas instead of shutting them down.” — Sydney Brouwer
  • “Most people get stuck when they try to solve complex problems by making a plan. But when they just start, new options appear.” — Sydney Brouwer
  1. Key Action Points
  • Run a plus one. Pick one small experiment you can try today to improve CX—even if it might not work.
  • Treat CX as complex. Stop looking for the perfect plan. Start by doing, learning, and adapting.
  • Be a builder, not a blocker. Choose language and behaviors that help ideas grow. Practice the plus one mindset in your team.

 

AI Generated podcast summary

 

Want to book Sydney as Keynote Speaker for your next event? Click here to make a non-binding request.