CX without the BS - Episodes Tagged with “Level365”

CX Industry LYING About AI Capabilities?

Brian Nichols — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 08:00:00 -0500

Derek Roush (The Cloud Sherpa) joins Brian Nichols to reveal the unethical "Spiff Chasing" in Telecom sales and why massive Early Termination Fees are holding businesses hostage. We dive deep into the conflict between honest Technology Advisors and the "Commission Breath" vendors who prioritize huge 12x upfront payouts over your actual business success. Derek exposes how some major UCaaS providers use restrictive 5-year contracts to mask poor support, forcing companies to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars just to escape bad service.

We expose the reality of the "Shell Game" regarding Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and why those "guaranteed uptimes" are mathematically designed to pay you pennies while you lose days of revenue. You need to hear this blueprint for identifying ethical partners through the Technology Advisor Alliance and why the industry's new obsession with "AI everything" is a dangerous lie that will likely tank your customer satisfaction scores if you aren't careful.

Video Chapters:

0:00 - Intro
9:52 - The "Quid Pro Quo" Vendor Trap
14:13 - The "Ick" of Telecom Sales & Bad Relationships
24:15 - Why SLAs Are A Total Shell Game
26:17 - "Death to ETFs" & The Month-to-Month Revolution
29:00 - Exposing "Spiff Chasing" & 12x Commissions
47:03 - The Big AI Lie in Customer Experience

Links Section
Vocal Point Consulting: https://www.vpccloud.com/
The Cloud Sherpa Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@cloudsherpa
The Narrow Road Podcast: https://www.vpccloud.com/ (Available via Vocal Point)
Technology Advisor Alliance (TAA): https://www.technologyadvisoralliance.com/
Level365: https://level365.com/

Why Customers HATE Calling You | Forget AI Chatbots, Fix Your DAMN Phone System First

Brian Nichols — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 13:00:00 -0500

Brian Nichols reveals why Unified Communications is the hidden revenue killer in 2026 and why the "Wall Street Trap" is destroying your Customer Experience.

Most SMBs think they have a "tools" problem, stacking AI chatbots and complex routing while their actual front door—the phone system—remains completely broken. In this episode, we expose the "Invisible Failure" of missed calls and dead-end voicemails that are costing you deals every single day. You need to hear this blueprint for fixing your digital front door, auditing your communications in 30 seconds, and escaping the enterprise pricing games that treat you like a number, not a partner.

Is Your UCaaS Vendor Lying About AI?

Brian Nichols — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 16:00:00 -0400

Think your UCaaS platform is using real AI?

If your customer is still hearing "Press 1 for Sales, Press 2 for Support" — that’s not intelligence. That’s a script with a buzzword mask. In this episode of CX Without the BS, we’re breaking down the #1 red flag that tells you your vendor might be full of it.

UCaaS buyers are getting hammered with “AI-powered” everything… but when you scratch the surface, it’s usually just old-school phone menus repackaged with fancier language. And your customers? They’re the ones getting stuck, frustrated, and lost in the shuffle.

We’re not here to dunk on AI — we’re here to show you what actually works. If you’re a technology advisor helping small and mid-sized businesses, this video gives you the language, insight, and proof to help your clients avoid getting scammed by AI theater.

The goal isn’t to sound smart — it’s to build systems that are. And at Level365, that’s the whole play: real routing, real results, no babysitting, and no BS.

Watch now and see how to spot fake AI before your customers get burned.

10 Discovery Questions EVERY Tech Advisor Needs

Brian Nichols — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 13:00:00 -0400

*What if one question could expose everything wrong with your customer experience?
*
Most businesses think their phone systems are “fine” – until you start asking the right questions. In this episode of CX Without the BS, we rip off the band-aid and walk through 10 brutally direct questions that reveal how your phone system is actually performing. You’ll walk away with a cheat code to uncover hidden CX gaps – the kind that are quietly costing money, frustrating customers, and demoralizing teams.

These aren’t softballs. We’re skipping the fluff and diving straight into the conversations you should be having with every client, every time. From missed call tracking to personal cell phone usage, every question pulls back the curtain on a broken or duct-taped system. If you’ve ever heard a business say “we’re fine,” you’ll want to press play.

We break down each question, not just with what to ask, but why it matters. You’ll learn how to spot blind spots in visibility, poor integrations, slow resolutions, voicemail chaos, and the myth of “happy customers” as a CX metric. Most of these issues aren’t on purpose - they’re a result of never asking hard questions in the first place.

Every single question in this episode is designed to expose real-world communication problems before they cost you a deal or a customer. These are the questions that separate amateur tech advisors from trusted experts – and they’re exactly how you position a better system without sounding salesy.

If you’re a technology advisor, a channel partner, or even a business owner yourself, this is 20 minutes of discovery gold. Don’t waste time pitching – ask better questions, uncover the gaps, and let the customer ask you for the fix.