Burgoyne Hughes

Burgoyne Hughes is a Senior Director of Customer Service Centers at GE Healthcare, and he approaches customer experience from the urgency of the call itself. When a clinician or medical technician reaches his team, there may be a patient waiting on the other end. Hughes believes good service has to deliver a correct answer quickly and leave the customer confident that the problem is being handled.

That focus on effort has shaped his view of CX for years. In a 2020 CX leaders report, Hughes argued that contact centers can become too focused on softer measures while overlooking that customers usually reach out because they have an immediate need, and time is a major source of friction. His approach puts resolution, accuracy, and fewer repeat contacts at the center of the experience.

At GE Healthcare, Hughes has translated that thinking into the systems agents use. A knowledge-management overhaul simplified complex procedures into workflows and decision trees that representatives could follow under pressure. GE Healthcare later reported a 60% reduction in hold times, while Hughes said the error rate fell from 1.6% in 2018 to 0.04%. The center went on to rank first in BenchmarkPortal’s 2024 medium-size category.

Earlier in his career at BuySeasons, a complaint about oversized piñata packaging prompted Hughes’s team to speak with other customers, trace the problem into fulfillment and merchandising, and change the product configuration. The result improved the experience while reducing shipping costs. For Hughes, customer service can surface operational problems that the rest of the business should act on.

Hughes is wary of using technology simply to keep customers away from service professionals. He believes digital service should be good enough that customers choose it, rather than another barrier they have to work around.