Until very recently Vadim Anikanov was the Head of Global Customer Operations at Digital Finance International, which is a member of the Finstar Financial Group. He has spent a couple of decades in various CX leadership roles and at present he is researching the effect of smart speakers on the customer experience. Vadim is particularly interested in the way that smart speakers, such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home will change and influence customer behaviour in a way that allows much greater interactivity with brands. This is an important topic for executives managing CX today because there are now hundreds of millions of these smart speakers installed in homes globally. Vadim is based between Salt Lake City and Moscow - I caught up with him at his Moscow office and asked him to explain some of his smart speaker research. Are brands taking smart speakers seriously enough? https://www.linkedin.com/in/anikanov/