Nilay Sule

I used to believe hypergrowth would feel like applause. Like standing on a big stage, lights warm on your face, victory confetti falling from the sky. Instead, it felt like stepping onto the support floor and hearing phones ring faster than anyone could breathe. Agents racing. Work piling up. Customers waiting in digital hallways, tapping feet you could almost hear. We weren’t creating delight. We were surviving demand. The Instinct Most Leaders Fall For My first reaction? Hire faster. Train harder. Write more SOPs . Throw bodies and binders at the fire. And it worked… for about a week. Then reality walked in, put its muddy boots on the carpet, and handed me the lesson: Customer experience doesn't scale through heroics. It scales through systems that never force people to be heroes. The Shift That Changed Everything So we rebuilt, brick by brick. We stopped “onboarding agents” and started growing customer advocates . We swapped lagging dashboards for real-tim...

  The D2C world is evolving — fast. Customers today don’t just buy products. They buy beliefs , values , and experiences . They want brands that speak their language, understand their intent, and make them feel seen. Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of working with organizations deeply rooted in customer experience and operational excellence. Through that journey, one thing became clear: Growth isn’t just about scaling faster — it’s about connecting deeper. That realization became the foundation for my next chapter — and the birth of Custx . The Idea Behind Custx Custx was born out of countless conversations with founders, marketers, and CX leaders trying to solve one common challenge: “How do we build lasting relationships with our customers — not just transactions?” The answer isn’t simple. But it starts with understanding. Too many brands have incredible products but fragmented experiences. They collect data, but lack insight. They automate communicat...

We hear it everywhere —   AI is transforming customer service.   Instant replies, smarter bots, and 24/7 availability. But is it really all sunshine and roses? Let me share a recent experience that made me rethink the “AI revolution.” A Locked Account and an Unexpected Lesson My mother-in-law, who isn’t exactly tech-savvy, recently found herself locked out of her bank account. Time for a password reset! 👵 Determined to handle it herself, she began the process online. That’s when the AI rollercoaster began. The Good: Speed and Accessibility at Its Best 🚀 The bank’s AI chatbot stepped in instantly. No waiting on hold, no navigating confusing IVR menus. It guided her smoothly through the initial steps of identity verification. For someone who dislikes dealing with long queues or tech-heavy processes, this felt like a small miracle. AI, in that moment, delivered exactly what it promises: accessibility, efficiency, and convenience. The Bad: When Empathy and Understanding Go Missi...

The Story of Nilay Sule" – A Masterclass in Experience "I've always believed that my career is not just a series of roles, but a story of building, scaling, and transforming customer experiences. Let me take you on that journey." Chapter 1 – The Beginning: Foundations of Service Excellence Back in 2003, I stepped into the world of operations at Sutherland Global as a young man, eager to understand the art of customer service at scale. Those were formative years where I learned to orchestrate complex operations across NAM, APAC, and EMEA. I introduced update-dissemination processes that streamlined communication across regions, and I'm particularly proud of improving first-contact resolution by 28%. That experience taught me something fundamental that would guide my entire career: every customer interaction has the potential to either build or break trust. It was there that I began my lifelong mission of making every customer interaction count. Chapter 2 – C...

Improving CSAT at Swiggy — The Power of the 5 Whys A couple of winters ago our CS dashboards at Swiggy started flashing red. Complaints were climbing. CSAT was sliding. Everyone was working harder… yet customers were angrier. We tried the obvious fixes — hired more agents, rewrote scripts, launched new features. Nothing stuck. So we paused, took a breath, and asked one deceptively simple question: “Why?” If you’ve ever watched your metrics nosedive despite heroic efforts, you’re not alone. But we didn’t stop at one “why.” We asked it five times , peeling back layer after layer: Why were customers unhappy? Orders were delayed. Why were orders delayed? Restaurant prep times were mismatched. Why were prep times mismatched? Our system was using outdated averages. Why were averages outdated? No one owned the data feed. Why did no one own it? We’d never assigned accountability during the last org redesign. By the fifth “why” the real culprit surfaced — a simpl...

  The Role of a CX Leader in Building Annual Operating Plans When most people think about an Annual Operating Plan (AOP) , they picture finance teams huddled over spreadsheets, debating revenue targets and cost lines. But for organizations with large customer-facing operations, Customer Experience (CX) leaders play an equally critical role —and not just as a supporting act. In my two decades leading CX and operations across sectors like FinTech, food delivery, and early-stage startups , I’ve learned that a CX leader’s input can be the difference between an AOP that looks good on paper and one that actually works in the real world. 1. Turning Customer Journeys into Budget Line Items A CX leader doesn’t just represent “support” in the budget—they represent the customer’s voice. When building an AOP, the first task is mapping operational realities to financial planning : Anticipating contact volumes across channels (voice, chat, email, social) based on marketing plans, produc...