Addressing the Partner Gap in Your CX Strategy

Most customer experience strategies stop at the edge of the organization. But your customers don’t.

Their perceptions are shaped long before they reach your product — and long after — through advisors, service partners, resellers, integrators, marketplaces, and alliances that influence every moment of their journey.

In this interactive session, we’ll explore the often-overlooked “partner gap” in CX: the disconnect between the experience you design and the one your partners actually deliver.

If your goal is to deliver a seamless, end-to-end customer experience, your partner ecosystem must be part of the plan.

This session shows you where to start — and what leading CX teams are already doing to close the gap.

January 22, 2026 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM (America/New York)
Register Here

You'll learn...

  • How partners shape brand trust, adoption, service quality, and loyalty — and why ignoring this influence undermines even the most mature CX programs.

  • Practical ways to extend your CX strategy into your partner ecosystem

  • Frameworks for mapping partner-impacted journeys, aligning partner behaviors with customer outcomes, and co-creating experiences that create consistency and confidence at every touchpoint.

Meet the speakers:

Jeff Ballard

Partner Experience, Bodine & Co.

Jeff helps technology vendors design and accelerate high performing partner ecosystems by putting customer value and the partner experience at the center of growth. Hailing from tech giants like IBM and Symantec — and propelling the startups that would like to join them, Jeff has crafted deep expertise in: Partner program design/development and joint go-to-market strategies Reducing friction, improving alignment, and empowering partners to ramp faster, sell more, and stay engaged Translating ecosystem complexity into clear, actionable strategies that drive measurable results.

Kerry Bodine

CEO

Kerry Bodine’s book, Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business, helps leaders understand the financial benefits of great customer experiences — and how to deliver them. In 2014, she founded Bodine & Co., a consulting firm that blends human-centered design with AI strategy to help organizations innovate and adapt. She’s a sought-after keynote speaker at conferences and corporate events worldwide, inspiring leaders to see change as an opportunity to deepen the value they provide. Kerry’s insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Forbes, and USA Today. She holds a master’s degree in human-computer interaction from Carnegie Mellon University.