Ep. 70 - What Warner Bros Discovery Gets Right About CX

Katie Duncan, former CX leader at Warner Bros. Discovery, joins The Experience Edge to unpack what it actually takes to operationalize customer experience inside complex, high-growth media organizations. Drawing from scaling CX across major streaming launches, she brings a grounded view on turning strategy into execution.The conversation centers on the gap between customer-centric ambition and operational reality. Katie argues that most companies lose customer insight during execution, and that true CX maturity comes from embedding insights into decision-making across the full lifecycle, not just measuring outcomes after the fact.Guest BioKatie Duncan is a customer experience leader with over 15 years of experience driving CX transformation across media and technology organizations. At Warner Bros. Discovery, she built and scaled CX operations supporting major streaming launches including Discovery Plus and Magnolia. Her work spans operational design, customer insights, and cross-functional alignment at scale. She is known for bridging strategy and execution in complex enterprise environments. Katie has led large teams and influenced CX integration across product ecosystems during periods of rapid growth and organizational change.Key TakeawaysCustomer centricity often exists as cultural language rather than operational reality, breaking down when insights are not embedded into decision-making processesCX impact comes from preventing friction early in the journey, not reacting to issues after they surface in metricsTreating CX as a reporting function limits influence, while positioning it as a decision partner enables real business impactHidden defects in customer journeys often exist between touchpoints, requiring end-to-end analysis rather than isolated optimizationAI accelerates insight generation but increases the need for governance, intentional design, and human-led context shapingChapters00:00 The illusion of customer centricity in enterprise CX03:30 Why customer insights fail to influence decision making08:00 Strategy misalignment and CX execution gaps12:30 From seat at the table to owning customer experience decisions16:00 Customer journey orchestration and decision context20:30 Moving beyond VOC reports to behavioral insights25:00 Identifying hidden friction in customer journeys29:30 Scaling CX impact through early intervention34:00 Building business acumen in CX teams38:30 AI in customer experience and shifting roles43:30 Context shaping and cross-functional alignment49:00 Governance in enterprise CX transformation54:00 Designing customer journeys from the startLinkedInKatie Duncan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-g-duncanJochem van der Veer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jochemvanderveerHashtags#EnterpriseCustomerExperience #CustomerJourneyOrchestration #CXTransformationStrategy #JourneyCentricOperatingModel #BreakingDownSilosInCX #CrossFunctionalAlignmentCX #CustomerExperienceLeadership #OperationalizingCustomerExperience #ExperienceDrivenGrowth #TheyDoPlatform #CustomerExperienceTransformationFramework #EnterpriseCXStrategy