Innovation in Action: How Shannon Knowlton Built an Award-Winning GenAI VoC Copilot
Episode #903 Show Notes:
Clare
Welcome to this special edition of the Inspiring Women in CX podcast! A series dedicated to real-talk conversations between women in customer experience and technology.
This season, we’re spotlighting the winners of the Inspiring Women in CX Awards 2025 – trailblazing women transforming customer and employee experience around the globe. Spanning industries, regions, and roles, their stories are powerful proof that when women lead, transformational change happens. You’ll hear firsthand as they share their journeys, insights, and vision for the future of CX.
I’m your host, Clare Muscutt, and today we’re celebrating our Innovation Award winner and her work driving cutting-edge CX solutions that streamline processes, amplify customer insights, and enable teams to focus on what really matters. With eight years experience in the industry, she leads the Voice of the Customer program at Selective Insurance, directing key surveys, championing employee engagement, and using innovative approaches to transform how insights drive action.
Allow me to introduce you to today’s inspiring guest, Shannon Knowlton!
Clare
Hey, Shannon, how are you?
Shannon
Good, Clare, how are you?
Clare
I’m well, thank you. I'm very excited to have you here on the very special series of the Inspiring Women in CX Award Winners podcast. So, I'm going to start with a huge congratulations, Shannon. How did it feel to win the 2025 Innovation Award?
Shannon
Thank you so much. To be nominated alone was really exciting. I didn't expect to win. All the other finalists were so impressive. They have amazing resumes, accomplishments, backgrounds, everything. So I really didn't think that I stood a chance against all of them. So that's why it was such a surprise and honour to be nominated. It's just one of those moments that you're just really grateful for, to just be included and be in the same company as some of those people. And then to actually win was surreal. I'm still honestly in shock, and I'm still taking it all in.
Clare
Oh, bless you. And in your LinkedIn post announcement, you mentioned that you realised you've got a bit of a tendency to minimise your own accomplishments. And it sounds like when you were thinking about this awards process being a finalist, you thought you were you didn't stand a chance, which was crazy, because your entry was absolutely amazing. Can you tell us a little bit more about why you felt that is, and what having an awards process helped you think a bit more about celebrating your accomplishments?
Shannon
I know I'm not a big fan of being the centre of attention. I hated and dreaded my own bridal shower, baby showers, all of that. I don't enjoy it. It's definitely not something that's in my comfort zone. And with work stuff and professional accomplishments, it's probably a little bit of imposter syndrome that plays into it. I've always had a bit of a tendency to downplay some of my own accomplishments. This year, though, in particular, I decided to make a conscious effort to kind of push past that. I've had a few big milestones. I earned my master's degree in CX Management from Michigan State University this year. I had an opportunity earlier this year to speak on a panel for the first time at a conference.
After all that, I realised it was time to start owning those moments and sharing them more openly with my network. So the nomination for the Women in CX Innovation Award came right in the middle of all of that. When I was trying to shift everything, it fell right there perfectly in place. And I figured what better way to lean into it and lean into the discomfort than to celebrate the work I've done. So the whole process really helped me reflect on how important it is to just acknowledge and embrace your impact, especially as a woman, even if it feels a little uncomfortable. And it did, but I did get a lot of traction on my posts. So that's good. And a little bit of a lesson to just post the things because people will read them, comment on them, and engage with them.
Clare
It's a lovely feeling, isn't it? When people you may not have seen for a long time celebrate you and your achievements. But I read the comments, and it was definitely no surprise to anyone else. But it sounds like this award was really just the icing on the cake of a really wonderful year for you. Congratulations! Can you tell us a little bit more about your current role and what you believe the most important skills are, and what the behaviours are, actually, for a VOC and more broadly, CX leader?
Shannon
So in my role as a Voice of the Customer Manager, I make sure that our customer feedback isn't just collected, that it's driving real change across our business. I work closely with different teams to surface the insights, spot the different patterns, and help prioritise some of the improvements that really are going to matter to our customers. When I think about the most important skills and behaviours for a VOC leader or a CX leader, there are three that stand out. Curiosity, definitely. You need to have a genuine interest in what your customers are saying and why, and digging deeper to uncover those root causes behind the feedback. Empathy – it's about more than just the data. It's understanding the human experience behind those numbers. And storytelling, you have to translate complex feedback into clear, compelling narratives that are going to inspire some change across the organisation, especially for people who are not in the CX space. You need to make sure that you're telling that story in a way that resonates with senior leaders or other stakeholders.
And on top of that, just being collaborative and I would say adaptable is crucial. You're often the one who has to provide the link between different teams and build trust. You have to be able to build those relationships and be able to collaborate because you can't do it alone. I can get CX data, but I have to understand the operational stuff too, and I can't do that by myself. So I need to be open to collaboration and building relationships across the organisation.
Clare
Yeah, and I think that really stood out in your entry as well, you know, the VoC Manager, but you're not just managing the customer insights, you're really taking ownership in driving action across the business and creating change as a result of those insights. And I think it's wonderful to have that as a really great example. And for you to be winning this award, I agree with you, you absolutely nailed the skills and behaviours needed for VOC and CX leaders. So I was wondering, who inspires you personally, both in and beyond your role in CX?
Shannon
I'm inspired every day, really, by the people that I work with. Both my immediate team and the wider department that I work in. It's definitely a really collaborative environment where I'm just constantly learning from everyone around me on how they approach problems, how they’re challenging assumptions, bringing creative ideas to the table. And our leadership really encourages thinking outside the box, which really fuels, I think, innovation across our whole team. So that mindset has really shaped me a lot, especially as I've stepped into more leadership responsibilities.
I've also drawn inspiration from my master's program at Michigan State, where my classmates had such diverse backgrounds and industries, and pushed me to think a little bit differently about how to tackle my challenges. It's easy to get…I work in the insurance space, so it's easy to look at a problem as an insurance problem instead of stepping back and looking at it from a full customer lens, not just the insurance space. Whether it was at work or in school, the people who inspired me most are really the ones who are more curious, empathetic, and just willing to challenge the status quo a little bit. Those are qualities that I really try to bring to my own work every day.
Clare
It sounds like an awesome place to work.
Shannon
Yeah, it's a great team.
Clare
Yeah, great role models and a great team to work with. I'm really, really pleased to hear about that, but I think what you're really kind of touching on there is culture, isn't it? The organisational culture that enables us to really deliver innovation, change, great customer experience – what you're talking about there is that kind of openness, collaborative attitude, the willingness to want to work together cross-functionally and create change. For those of us who get stuck in roles where that's not present, it's a hell of a lot harder, isn't it?
Shannon
It is, it's a lot harder. It makes a huge difference when you work with such a collaborative and supportive team. I couldn't imagine being as successful in my work without a team like that, honestly. It wouldn't be possible.
Clare
Well, they sound awesome. Big shout-out to that team. So, just thinking about your nomination and your entry specifically, the judges were particularly impressed by you introducing Gen AI Copilot agents to streamline the monthly VOC analysis process. You cut hours – hundreds of hours – of manual work and enabled a lot more time for stakeholder engagement, which sounds like it was the key to the successes that you've had. Can you tell us a little bit more about that work and the difference that it made?
Shannon
Yeah, absolutely. So, my monthly VOC analysis was a very manual process. I would spend hours pulling data, identifying themes, formatting the insights, and it got the job done, but it left very little time for any strategic conversations I wanted to focus on. I was literally just grabbing the data, formatting the data, covering and then delivering. I wasn't adding any additional value, really, I felt. So I was able to team up with a colleague of mine to develop a GenAI Copilot agent that automated some of the repetitive tasks, like summarising the feedback, grouping the themes, while still preserving that human judgment where it counts, because AI hallucinates sometimes, so you can't just trust it and pass the information along. We've been refining it over several months, and the accuracy has been really impressive. And even within the refinement, the agent has learned some of my behaviours, which is creepy in a good way. It learned the questions I tend to go back to and now includes some of that information in the analysis already.
The biggest impact has really been, of course, the time saved, which has allowed me to engage a little bit more with my stakeholders and explore some of the root causes in more detail. So it's opened up space for more meaningful research and better decision-making. And honestly, this project was just a really great example of how innovation and collaboration can really boost and elevate the quality of your work. It's honestly a really good use case for AI in general, not as a replacement, but as a tool to free up time for higher-value efforts. Once you shift your mindset to see that AI is an enabler, it becomes a little bit easier to embrace the experiment with it. I think being able to use it as a tool to just improve the quality of work I was doing was key, not just to get it done quicker and move on to the next thing, but getting the manual tasks out of the way and then spending time with my stakeholders to better understand what the customers were saying.
Clare
Yeah, and add more value, as you said, in the process. Can you tell me a little bit more about the process that you went through, like you said, about the kind of training it to be a really great agent to work on your behalf and support you? How did you avoid those hallucinations? Were there any tips you could share? I know a lot of people are working on this at the moment, trying to figure out how AI can help out, like keeping that human in the loop approach to things. Is there anything that you'd say to anyone who's listening and trying to do that, what the secret might be?
Shannon
Well, for us, when we were building the agent, we learned with Copilot specifically to be very specific in the instructions. And it works really well even when you provide it with the format you want your output to come in. So we showed it that we would like the output to come in the form of some tables and then bulleted information underneath. If it has a good idea of what the template is that you want it to use, it's a little bit easier for it to pop the information in. Through some trial and error, we learned that, because my data is in Excel – I export it into Excel – we learned that it doesn't like raw Excel data as much as it likes tables. If you convert your data to a table, it can read the columns and the rows a little bit more clearly. So we learned that through a lot of trial and error.
And then just learn to be patient with it. If you're messing around with it and you're playing with it and you're making updates to the rules, it's going to take a little while for it to catch up with itself. So when we were testing it, we would make updates in the morning and then test in the afternoon just to give it a couple of hours to reset itself and understand what we were asking. And then it's AI, it's the robot. So you have to check it. Usually, I would check my data before I would upload it. So I understood how many individual lines of feedback I had, how many open-ended responses, and I would usually ask it to reiterate that to me, so when you're giving me the feedback, tell me how many records there are, how many open-ended responses, so that we would have a good idea if it was actually reading the correct file or not.
Clare
That is a really simple but effective tip, isn't it? To ask it again, what did I give you in this data? Tell me what that data was based on. Yeah. Read it back to you as you gave it. That's a really good one. So moving on to thinking a bit more about some of the challenges you might have faced. And I'm thinking specifically that innovating in traditionally risk-averse sectors like insurance really isn't easy at all. Can you share a little bit more about how you overcame this and what advice you would give to other CX professionals on how to lead CX innovation?
Shannon
Yeah, innovation in insurance is definitely…it does require a thoughtful approach, I'll say. The industry is definitely risk-aware. I would say that means we're just more strategic and intentional about introducing change, especially when it comes to customer experience. So at Selective, there is a commitment to building a culture of innovation and delivering a great customer experience. So, what I found is the purposeful innovation, those solutions, the clear problems that you're trying to solve, creating value for customers and agents – that's usually what's embraced the most. It's not about tracing the trends so much. It's about making meaningful improvements. And when I proposed using the generative AI to streamline the VOC analysis, I didn't lead with the technology I was using. I led with the problem. So I framed the business case around the time that we're spending on the manual task, and then the opportunities that would be there if we were to shift the time towards deeper insights and stakeholder engagement. So that framing in this space definitely helped to get the support I needed to jump in with that. And it made it clear that the innovation was aligned with our goals a little bit more.
So my advice for other CX professionals would be just start with the why and understand the problem a little bit more deeply before you build a clear case. And then once you have that information, you can build that case for how your solution is going to drive value and collaborate early and often. So you socialise the problem, and you get the buy-in ahead of time. It makes it a lot easier.
Clare
Nice! Very sound advice indeed. And where do you think CX Innovation is heading next? And how do you plan to stay ahead of the curve?
Shannon
That's a really great question and something that I, especially since winning the award, have been reflecting on a lot more. While I don't, of course, have a crystal clear vision of what exactly CX is going to look like as far as innovation goes and where we’re headed next, probably because of imposter syndrome. I won't allow myself to pretend like I have any clue.
Clare
Give it a go!
Shannon
I'm pretty certain that staying connected with the community is probably most essential. I'm active in professional networks like Women in CX and others. I find that the readings that come along with that, attending the different events, and just engaging in the conversations help me kind of stay involved in what emerging trends might be out there. Mentorship, I would also say, plays a big role in staying ahead, both traditional mentorship from experienced leaders and then peer-based mentorship, especially now. You can learn something valuable from everyone, whether it's a seasoned expert, a colleague who has similar issues. Those relationships really help me gain a fresh perspective. I have a lot of people I look at as a mentor, and some are more seasoned, and some are the exact same level as me, but we're in a different industry. So we're getting the same issues, but we're tackling them differently. And I think you learn a lot from that. And of course, networking, regular conversations with people outside your organisation, that's really where you're going to find out what things are going on outside of your space. I think it's very easy in your world, in your role, to have your head down, working on your stuff, you're not thinking outside, but a lot's happening out there. So staying out there and networking outside of your organisation, I think, is key.
Clare
Yeah, avoiding getting insular. Definitely. That was a very good one. I spent five years in retail, and it was definitely the temptation to just look at other retailers, not what was happening beyond retail. And a lot of the inspiration that gave us the most interesting concepts actually came from outside of what everybody else was doing. And I think that's it about innovation, isn't it? Not to be truly the first to do something is rare, but it really does take understanding, I think, the problems to solve, and then coming up with a response that no one else has yet. That's what innovation is really about, isn't it? So finally, Shannon, what advice would you give to other aspiring innovators in customer experience?
Shannon
I mean, of course, I don't have all the answers, but what I've learned about innovation in CX is just to stay curious and open-minded. It's often the small insights or better questions that lead to the real breakthroughs, not just the big ideas. Because even what I did wasn't, I didn't think – which is why I was probably so surprised to be nominated – I didn't feel like it was anything earth-shattering. I just saw a process that could be improved, and I tried to improve it. So really, for me, innovation just grows when you expose yourself to those different perspectives. Even the networking and all that, you have to stay exposed to all those things. Connecting with your peers, mentors, community, and anyone who's going to challenge your thinking and introduce fresh ideas is always good. I think, especially in experience management, a lot of what we need to do is try to break out of the 'that's the way we've always done it' mentality, because customers evolve, people change, and you can't do things the way you've always done them because customer expectations change all the time.
And honestly, most importantly, don't be afraid to push yourself outside your comfort zone. Innovation rarely happens there. And some of my best growth moments this year came from leaning into the discomfort. Whether it was a new approach to something, speaking up, launching something a little unfamiliar, any of that stuff just helps you build confidence and momentum. So I feel like just stepping out of your comfort zone is really the most important thing.
Clare
That's such sound advice, and yeah, beating that imposter syndrome, the voice that's telling you to hold back. It's something we've all got to continuously work on, to challenge. But I was just thinking, you know, just to reiterate, like why you won this award, though – you didn't go and buy an off-the-shelf product of an AI co-pilot to do this analysis for you. You went back into the business and worked with a colleague to build something for yourself. And that is innovation, and that is impressive. I don't know whether you added this to the business case, but that might be something that your service providers would charge a hell of a lot of money for as a skill set. I think that taking that internal approach to designing and building something to solve that problem, that to me is why you won this award. So congratulations again, Shannon. Thank you. I'm very excited to see what you do next. I've heard that you're moving into a new role soon.
Shannon
I am moving into a new role soon. I'm still staying in the insurance space. I just can't get away, but I'm transitioning from VOC management more into journey mapping and journey ownership.
Clare
Journey management, that's super exciting! Thank you so much for your time today, Shannon. It's been wonderful to talk to you, and yeah, hopefully we'll see you back next year for the 2026 awards.
Shannon
Hope so! Bye, Clare.
Clare
Take care, bye for now!
Clare
Thanks for listening to the Inspiring Women in CX Award Winners podcast with me, Clare Muscutt.
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