The Path Uncut E3: Trish Wethman on building the role that changes everything
Over the years, I’ve had a front-row seat to how organizations talk about CX, and more often than not, it’s reactive. CX gets treated like a fix-it team. You launch a new product or process, something breaks, and then CX steps in to apologize and smooth it over.
But that’s not what customer experience is meant to be. And in Episode 3 of The Path Uncut, Trish Wethman reminded me of that in the most powerful way.
And Trish isn’t just talking theory in this episode. She’s spent 15+ years transforming customer and employee experiences across fintech, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and financial services. And in that time, she’s developed something powerful: the Insights Business Partner – a role she established to solve one of the biggest blockers in CX today: inaction.
That was the first thing Trish said that hit me like a brick. And she’s right—if you’re only focusing on customer service, it means something in the journey already failed.
CX can’t just be a bandage. It has to be part of the build.
That mindset shift—from reactive to proactive—is what separates high-performing, customer-led organizations from the rest, and it’s something Trish has spent her career operationalizing.
The traditional model? CX teams sit on the sidelines, compiling reports and chucking insights over the fence. It’s passive and it doesn’t drive change.
The Insights Business Partner flips that model.
These partners are embedded in the business—aligned with key departments, fluent in the language of product, marketing, operations, and compliance. They don’t just analyze feedback. They help teams answer the question: What does this insight unlock?
And they aren’t generalists – rather, they go deep. Think: HR business partner meets CX strategist – It’s about proximity and influence.
We’ve all heard it: “We care about customer experience.” And I believe most leaders genuinely do. But belief without alignment doesn’t move the needle.
Getting organizations to treat CX as essential isn’t easy – silos get in the way. Incentives misalign. And don’t get us started on the politics.
Trish’s answer? Relationships first. In her first 30 to 60 days at any new organization, she hits pause on pushing agendas. Instead, she listens. She meets with GMs, heads of product, contact center leads—even teams like credit that might seem worlds away from CX. Why? Because influence starts with understanding what matters to them.
“Stakeholder collaboration is everything,” Trish says. “You have to show them how doing the right thing for the customer drives their goals.”
I shared a personal story during our conversation—one I’m sure many of you have experienced. I called my bank about a mortgage issue and got transferred four times. Each person was kind, polite, helpful. Each one asked me to verify the same info. And each one triggered a separate CSAT survey.
On paper? Four “great” interactions. But my actual experience? Frustrating and inefficient.
As Trish pointed out, when your people are bonused on those micro-surveys, you’re not measuring the journey—you’re measuring fragments. And it gives leaders a false sense of success.
What we need instead is longitudinal insight—tracking how perceptions evolve over time, and how each decision supports (or erodes) long-term loyalty.
We also talked about purposeful friction—when a little resistance in the journey protects customers (like fraud checks in financial services). The point is not to eliminate every barrier but to make sure every step has a reason or objective.
I told Trish about a restaurant near me that requires two-factor authentication just to place an online order. No payment. No personal info. Just my usual lunch order—and I had to verify a code like I was accessing a bank account.
Trish laughed, then said something else that stuck with me: “Start with the customer, not the solution.”
So many companies lead with shiny tech, then retrofit the customer into it. The Insights Business Partner flips that by asking the hard questions first, such as:
Trish doesn’t just want smart analysts, she wants catalysts: People who know how the org works. Who’ve sat in operations, worked with agents, know where the bodies are buried—and can connect the dots others miss.
This role demands curiosity, credibility, and political fluency. You’re not just interpreting insights—you’re selling them internally. You’re translating feedback into action that drives revenue, loyalty, innovation, and growth.
As Trish says, “If your insights team is just throwing data over the fence, you’re not building value. You’re just staying busy.”
With AI, voice analysis, behavioral data, and at-scale qual all coming together, we’re at a tipping point. The organizations that win won’t be the ones that collect the most data—they’ll be the ones that do something with it.
That means shifting from dashboards to decisions, and from knowing customers to acting in their interest—every time.
And that’s the promise of the Insights Business Partner.
🎧 Listen to the full episode of The Path Uncut with Trish Wethman here.
And if your org is exploring what it really means to operationalize insights, let’s talk. This is the work we care most deeply about.
At Blazer, we partner with ambitious brands and leaders that refuse to settle for less.
Blazer is the consulting firm that helps brands prove what drives customer value, and builds teams that deliver on it.
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16 W. Martin St., 9th Floor, Raleigh, NC 27601
