#256: Beyond the Theory: Creating Meaningful Experiences with Sam Stern

Sam Stern shares his unique perspective on bridging strategic insights with practical execution. He dives deep into the nuances of translating feedback into internal improvements at LinkedIn, highlighting the value of member voices in shaping user-centric solutions.

Sam underscores the importance of emotional memory in customer experience design, emphasizing that people remember how moments felt more than they recall the details. Drawing inspiration from psychological principles like the Peak-End Rule, he illustrates how LinkedIn designs experiences that create memorable moments during major career milestones—such as job changes or layoffs—strengthening user engagement and loyalty. Sam also shares how service design has enabled closer collaboration with product teams, allowing for a more systemic impact on the user journey.

Another key topic discussed is the evolving role of AI in customer experience. Sam foresees a future where AI agents become integral collaborators, requiring human oversight and ethical consideration. He advocates for creating seamless, emotionally resonant experiences by blending technology with thoughtful design. Throughout the conversation, he stresses the critical need to speak the language of stakeholders internally to drive alignment and sustainable change—an often-overlooked element in transformation efforts.

The Top 3 Key Learnings

1. Design for Memory, Not Just Interaction: Customers don’t remember every moment—they remember how the experience made them feel. Designing for emotional peaks during key life events (like job transitions) creates lasting loyalty.

2. Speak the Language of Your Stakeholders: Internal success depends on your ability to frame CX improvements in terms others care about. Building trust and using stakeholder-relevant language is essential to gain traction.

3. Service Design Enables Systemic Impact: By combining CX principles with service design tools like journey maps and blueprints, teams can align better with product and operational functions to deliver holistic, integrated solutions.

About Sam Stern

Currently, Sam leads the Service Design team at LinkedIn, responsible for creating delightful experiences for the platform's 1 billion members and customers.
He has also created 3 LinkedIn Learning courses on Customer experience enjoyed by more than 100,000 learners to date.
Sam has his own podcast, CX Patterns, which you can find on any of your favorite podcast hosting platforms.
Previously, Sam started a customer experience team for the sneaker company New Balance, and before that was a CX analyst at Forrester Research, covering customer-centric culture, employee experience, and CX governance, and working with past CX Goalkeeper guests like Maxie Schmidt, Bruce Temkin and Natalie Petouhoff.

Resources

LinkedIn: https://www.samsterncx.com/ https://www.samsterncx.com/

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About Gregorio Uglioni:
Transforming Business Into Value Generating Engines - Creating Long-Lasting Impact Leveraging Customer Experience - Host Of The Globally Recognized CX Goalkeeper Podcast “Customer Experience Goals” - Speaker at global events & at podcasts - Judge at International Awards - CX Lecturer for several institutions

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