Oh, how far we’ve come – and how far we still have to travel!

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Happy CX Pros day!

Hi everyone! I’ve been on the road pretty consistently for the last 4 weeks and there are definitely some themes that are popping up across all the conferences and private events I’ve been doing. I’ve met so many of you and I’m always so delighted to get to hear people’s stories. Especially their stories about their CX journey.

The themes I’ve found that I have to share and I think that we, as a practice, need to address are:

  1. Everyone is talking about CX, but very few are actually really doing it. As I’ve traveled out and about, I’ve heard from tons of big and small companies about what they are doing as a part of their CX work. What I’m seeing is that people will start a governance council or build out a VOC platform or journey map the heck out of everything. None of these things, in a silo, will move you very far towards a better customer experience for your customers! Back up, stop looking for single thread solutions and create a master plan that incorporates all of the steps you need in order to move your organization forward.
  1. We have a lot of people who don’t know what their title means. If I had a dollar for every person who has come up to me and said “I’m the CX xxx for yyy company. And I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do..” I’d be retired.

My friend Lynn Hunsaker from Clear Action (a dear fellow practitioner turned consultant) and I were talking about this a few months ago. So we decided it would be entertaining for us all to have a little fun with all the different roles that are playing in this space. We hope you love our tongue in cheek attempt at making a tough subject a little lighter! We’re an evolving practice, and sooner or later this will all settle.   The Anatomy of a CX Team Infographic.

  1. People are so caught up in trying to keep up with the next “big” score that they literally are measuring everything and learning nothing. I’ve listened to speakers who tell me that NPS is the only answer. Then ease. Then loyalty. Then satisfaction. What I’ll tell you is to back up a little and understand what metric really matters to your company. Is it share of wallet? Is it items in the basket? Is it long term loyalty? Once you’ve figure out that, then you can take the steps to identify what metric should really matter to you. Once you’ve identified that? Measure the heck out of it. Make it simple (3 questions or less!) and make sure you aren’t surveying the same person at every transactional turn.
  1. We’re starting to fracture and I think it may be a little too early for that. What I mean is that I’m starting to meet heads of digital customer experience and heads of communications customer experience and heads of contact center customer experience. I’m hopeful that all these people report into or are directed by a customer experience officer, but I know that because there are so few people in the C-Suite in these roles that chances are their activities aren’t being orchestrated. It kind of reminds me of the old days in marketing when suddenly digital sprang up separately from paper. Most firms have brought all these things together again, but not before they were offering completely separate marketing experiences by channel (and not in a good way). I’m hopeful that this, too, will settle over time…
  1. We are a bunch of really nice people. And not in that fakey kind of way. I’m always astounded by how willing people are to share what they’ve learned. How willing they are to talk to one another. Most people who are drawn to Customer Experience really seem to just want to get stuff done and do it the right way for the customer. That’s a posse that I’m proud to be a part of. I was being introduced at a conference last week, and the emcee introduced me as the “OG of CX”. The original gangster. I almost peed my pants I laughed so hard – and it was tough to get up on stage, gather my composure and kick off my keynote.. It was a very long time ago, back in the mid 200s when I was named one of the first Customer Experience Officers in America. It was a really lonely time too. No one had heard of the term. It wasn’t common place at all. With the help of some amazing friends like Bruce Temkin and the Customer Experience Professionals Association, we’ve really made this mainstream. Now it is up to us to pull up our big girl panties, figure out how to show our impact and really ensure that as a profession, we’re here for years to come

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  1. Pingback: Conversation with Ingrid Lindberg - Customer Experience Officer

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