Jun 16, 2026
Most companies are rushing to deploy AI faster than their competitors. Alvin Stokes of Princess Cruises says that is exactly the wrong instinct. Speed without emotional intelligence does not create better guest experiences. It creates tools your frontline team will not use, prototypes your customers will not trust, and revenue you will not recover. Alvin has spent two years inside one of the most guest-focused industries in the world, generating a nine-figure incremental revenue gain from AI programs by doing one thing most leaders skip: proving it works before scaling it. This episode is for any leader who wants to move fast with AI without breaking the customer relationship in the process.
What You Will Learn About AI, Guest Experience, and Emotionally Intelligent CX:
- Why emotional intelligence is the missing ingredient in most AI deployments, and how Princess Cruises builds it into every tool before agents ever touch it
- The blueprint Alvin’s team uses to prototype fast, pilot heavily, fail quickly, and scale only what actually works, producing a nine-figure revenue gain in 12 months
- How AI is changing what “listening to customers” means, from three-month-old NPS surveys to real-time sentiment analysis across every channel interaction
- Why the frontline agents who resist new tools are your most valuable source of feedback, and how to use their input to drive faster adoption across the team
- How Princess Cruises’ Smooth Sailing Squad uses AI-generated daily reports to surface policy and process friction points before they damage the guest experience
- What new KPIs are replacing NPS as the primary measure of guest loyalty, and why tracking sentiment over 10, 50, or 200 interactions tells you things a single survey never can
Have a question or thoughts to share? Leave a voice message: https://www.speakpipe.com/StacySherman
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