Francesca Roche sits down with Zach Barney, CEO and Co‑Founder at Mobly, to explore why in‑person customer experiences have lagged behind digital channels, and what it will take to finally close that gap.
While digital marketing has spent years refining attribution, automation, and measurement, Barney argues that events and field marketing have been left operating in silos. In the interview, he points to a familiar frustration for CX and marketing leaders: valuable face‑to‑face interactions are still too often reduced to business cards, one‑off badge scanners, and delayed follow‑ups that drain momentum from promising conversations.
Barney explains how Mobly’s AI‑native platform is designed to change that dynamic by connecting event planning, lead capture, follow‑up, and ROI tracking into a single system. The aim is not just efficiency, but accountability, giving in‑person engagement the same level of visibility and credibility as digital demand generation.
One of the most striking themes is speed. Barney highlights how long it typically takes organisations to follow up after an event, often more than a week, and why that delay undermines customer experience at a critical moment of intent. He shares how capturing the context of a live conversation, rather than just contact details, can dramatically change the quality and relevance of post‑event engagement.
